Consulting Essentials - Flash reports
This "Consulting Essential" will give you an extremely useful project tool – the ABCD.
On every project there is a need for some form of reporting across the project team. I have found that an ABCD report is simple to use, provides an effective snapshot of project or stream status and most importantly takes very little time to write.
So what do I mean by ABCD?
“A” stands for Achievements: What have been the main achievements against the project or stream deliverables over the last period?
“B” stands for Benefits: What have been the benefits arising out of these achievements? For example if an achievement has been, “Implementation plan agreed” the benefit could be, “ready to move into implementation phase”.
“C” stands for Concerns: What are the issues or concerns that have arisen?
“D” stands for Do Nexts: What are the next steps that will be taken to address the concerns?
Take a PowerPoint slide with a 2 by 2 grid on it. Label up the 4 quadrants with A (top left), B (top right), C (bottom left) and D (bottom right). Then create a protocol within your project for each stream and the overall project to produce an ABCD report at regular intervals. I tend to do them weekly as this means frequent sharing of success or flagging of issues; it also helps to maintain momentum. These can be reviewed in your project team meetings.
You could even extend this concept for updating the Steering Team or other key stakeholders.
Why not introduce ABCDs to your project today?