What is Performance Reporting? Types, Tools & Steps to Create

Performance Reporting in project management and updating the team on project performance is a critical communication requirement for project stakeholders to keep them informed of progress and resources employed to achieve project objectives. When reporting performance, one must make sure to provide the information and amount of detail that the project stakeholders demand.

Performance reports are mainly read by project managers to solve the performance issues in a project.  In this article, we will learn how to develop effective and precise performance reports, why they are vital in project management, as well as the numerous types and tools available to help you make the best decisions. Go for training in Project Management and learn to lead project teams to success.

What is Performance Reporting? 

A performance report is a written report that depicts a project's performance measurements. Teams determine whether or not they are meeting their defined goals and objectives by using data and analysis. To create performance reports, complete information regarding project cash flow, resources, including progress must be gathered. Management and stakeholders get an accurate high-level picture of the project's development based on the data, which translates into smarter decisions and greater business performance.

Open and robust lines of communication are critical components of successful initiatives.   Communication is important for anyone, like a consummate professional at the highest level of their abilities. Making choices, reducing losses, reallocating resources all need accurate data, analysis, and reports on project performance. You need an overall view of your Work Performance Information (WPI) for a successful project.

What is Performance Reporting in Project Management?

Performance reporting serves as a way to assess how well a firm is functioning and whether its goals and objectives are being met.

To accomplish it, you collect and evaluate data from specific tasks. When you've completed your study, you may offer recommendations to enhance decision-making in your business processes. There are several performance reporting objectives. A performance report, for example, might focus on a single project or team member, yet it may also cover the entire firm.

Following data items are commonly included in performance reports:

• Business objectives and goals
• Five-year plan
• Important performance indicators (KPI)
• The frequency with which KPIs are measured.
• Data source being monitored.

Why is Performance Reporting Important? 

A performance report provides you with a clear and accurate image of your company's success. A performance report is generated primarily for the reasons listed:

• It keeps track of everything connected to your current activity.
• It determines if your business operations will aid in your growth and achievement of your objectives.
• It highlights your strengths as well as your limitations.

Let us delve a little further to examine the primary reasons why businesses must develop performance reports. Alongside, you can opt for PMP certification preparation course to ace your PMP exam in the very first go and get to your dream position.

1. Benchmarking

In performance reports, benchmarking is used to create and measure goals. It compares your company's performance to that of competitors and assists you in identifying areas where you are failing and outperforming so you can understand where your company stands in the industry.

Benchmarking reduces guessing and delivers concrete solutions to problems. It gives you the information you need to examine and identify new opportunities. This will increase your efficiency and production while also increasing client happiness!

2. Observes the Workforce

To produce quality and high yielding Vermicompost for all farmers. It assists you in defining your workforce's performance and determining how well your staff is performing and where improvements may indeed be made.

The study also assesses client satisfaction in relation to your team. This not only helps employees enhance their performance, but it also aids in the general growth of your company!

3. Creating External Reports

Businesses must create various external reports in order to comply with reporting standards and legislation, including annual reports, financial statements, and so on. Performance reporting in Project Management helps to prepare these types of external reports.

4. Improves Business Performance

A performance report gives you real-time data regarding your business. This data may be utilized to discover strengths as well as weaknesses, allowing you to make changes and improvements by redesigning your company's strategy and processes.

This is an excellent strategy to improve your company's performance. Using these reports, you can create reasonable and attainable goals that will improve staff morale while also increasing overall performance and productivity.

5. Enhances Communication

A performance report may help you understand your personnel and their levels of performance. It also delivers customer insights and assists you in understanding your customers' wants. You will be able to communicate with your staff and customers more successfully if you have a better image of them.

This will guarantee that information flows smoothly inside the organization, eliminating miscommunication and other workplace problems. As a consequence, team energy and morale will increase.

Performance Report Types 

Employ a performance evaluation to evaluate the actual project to the plan. You may do this for a variety of data points. The following are the six most typical forms of performance reports:

1. Project Status Report: It encapsulates the project's state at a certain point of its life cycle. A status report provides a snapshot of the project's current scope, timing, cost, and quality.
2. Progress Report: Records what has been done in the project since the last progress report.
3. Forecasting Report: Estimates what is predicted to happen inside a project, including future performance and the project's current condition. This is utilized to make better use of resources.
4. Trend Report: It compares the project's performance to the same time in the prior report. This can be done on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or yearly basis.
5. Variance Report: It graphs the disparity between a project's actual and anticipated progress.
6. Earned Value report: Using earned value administration methodologies, integrates scope, schedule, and cost performance. This report is frequently included in the status report for the project.

Elements of Performance Reporting Process 

Depending on the project, team, and business, performance reporting addresses various objectives. As just a result, reports are created in a variety of formats; nonetheless, the majority of them focus on the following common elements:

1. Analysis of Previous Performances: This information is used to determine if the project's performance is more than or below expectations.
2. Summary of Changes: This measure includes information on project expenses and the balance of available resources thus far. The study shows if work performance is in line with what was agreed upon at the scheduling stage.
3. The Next Steps: Keeping track of unanticipated alterations to project development is a critical component of performance reporting. These reports should detail the adjustments and explain why they were made.
4. Project Estimation: Performance report projections synthesize data on the expenses and resources available then compare them towards what is necessary for project success.
5. Information for stakeholders: Data gathered from risk mapping reports give significant insights that can assist teams in identifying barriers and determining the appropriate mitigation strategies.
6. Work Performance Information & Measurement: These reports comprise the project's last phases, taking into consideration any adjustments, team performance, and the time necessary to finish the remaining tasks.

What Goes into Performance Reporting?

The following are the instruments inside:

1. Project Management Plan

The Project Management Plan contains data on project baselines. The project deviations provided in performance reports are compared to the project performance baseline. The process improvement baseline usually includes the project's scope, schedule, and cost criteria, but it may also contain technical and quality parameters.

2. Work Performance Information (WPI) 

This is the data gathered from project activities and then analyzed to produce performance outcomes such as:

• Status of deliverables
• Schedule progress
• Expenses

3. Work Performance Measurement

Work Performance Information is utilized in Project Management to develop project activity metrics that compare actual progress to the expected progress. These metrics are as follows:

• Performance of the planned versus actual timetable
• Performance of planned against actual costs.
• Technical performance as planned vs actual

4. Budget Performance reports

Budget forecasts give information on the finances needed to accomplish the remaining project work, and total fund projections for project completion.

5. Organizational Process Assets

Organizational Process Assets utilized in Project performance reporting include, but are not limited to -

• Templates for Reports.
• Rules and procedures defining the measuring indicators that will be employed.
• Variance restrictions established by the organization.

How to Create a Performance Report in Project Management?

These are the steps to creating a Project Performance Report for your company:

Step 1. Keep the Audience in Mind

The first step in designing a good performance report is to consider your target audience. Your performance report is created primarily for top management, though it is also utilized by employees. When you begin writing a performance report, consider their reasons for requesting one. Consider the following questions:

• Who is your target demographic?
• What do they prefer: a general performance report or a specific performance report?
• Will they find this performance report useful?

Step 2. Define Mission and Objectives

Once you've determined your target audience, you must define your goals. Describe your organization's mission and goals and objectives. For example, if you own a clothes store, your purpose may be to become the greatest clothing retailer in your city, and your objectives could be to grow sales and income.

This will allow you to review and measure your company's performance against its missions and objectives, allowing you to see how well you are doing something in terms of accomplishing or reaching your objectives.

Step 3. Start with an Executive Summary

Begin your performance reporting in project management with an executive summary that provides an overview of your company's success in all areas of operation.

It essentially serves as a snapshot, containing a quick and simple summary of the facts that your report will cover. It summarizes your company's development.

Step 4. Provide the Performance Assessment

Following the completion of your summary or synopsis, you will proceed to the real evaluation of your organization. This section deconstructs your business by analyzing all of the important KPIs and metrics involved in gauging your outcomes.

To demonstrate how well you performed, classify everything into four categories: Strong, Good, Fair, or Weak, which can assist with concentrating on particular areas for development.

Here are some other items you may include in this section:

• Company's Financial Situation: Examine the current situation of cash flow and revenue generation.
• Comparisons of Industries: Compare rivals' KPIs and indicators to demonstrate how well your firm is performing in the market.
• Non-financial quantitative data: Look at the proportion of product rejections, sales volume, number of complaints, and so forth.
• Non-financial qualitative data include mentions of changes in reputation, efficacy, customer happiness, worker morale, and so on.

Step 5. Include Visual Elements

Graphic features make business reports more interesting and understandable, and that's why they are an important component of performance reports. Tables, charts, graphs, and other visual components are examples of visual elements.

You may include a visual trend analysis part in your performance evaluation that highlights your KPIs in a graphical format over a certain time period. This will reveal any patterns or trends that your firm may have in contrast to other businesses.

You can additionally include a section for extensive statistics tables where you can exhibit your statistics and ratios and compare them to other firms in your field.

Best Tools for Creating Performance Reports 

Have a look at three of the best tools for creating successful and eye-catching reports.

1. Asana

Asana provides performance report in project management that also allows you to write project reports. It includes the Universal Reporting feature, which allows you to examine your work from any imaginable viewpoint. As a consequence, you may make data-driven decisions to improve the performance of your team.

This application serves as a one-stop shop for monitoring an organization's progress towards its primary goals. With its chart template library and other powerful capabilities, it streamlines the whole reporting process.

This application provides real-time views and actionable information for all projects, regardless of how many projects a firm maintains at the same time. The charts assist you better diagnose and comprehend the difficulties as well as their causes. As a result, you may take the necessary steps to correct them.

2. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is a free reporting tool for project management. This platform allows you to produce precise reports about team performance, sales statistics, customer engagement, and a variety of additional services. To create a report, select one of its reporting templates and adjust the fields.

It helps you save time by automating the entire reporting process. Schedule the report using your desired criteria, and the tool will automatically deliver the report at the time you choose. You may also view an individual's performance graph by requesting a daily report.
It is very simple to share reports generated by this application. With a single click, you may share the report inside or export the data to Excel for external distribution.

3. Monday.com

Do you want to wow everyone with a fantastic project progress report? Try Monday.com, a reports tool that allows you to create both basic and comprehensive reports based on your needs. A Search Anything bar is available in the reporting tool. It enables you to locate any data, even in a long and complicated report.

You may analyze your process using its dashboard's Chart Views. You may also use it to gather data from several boards and consolidate it in one location for improved decision-making. Stacked charts may also be used to illustrate data.
For sophisticated reporting, you may leverage tools such as Pivot Board, Performance Analytics View, textual sentiment recognition, and cumulative data addition.

4. Tableau

Tableau is a well-known reporting programme that also provides insights into corporate analytics. This worldwide respected application effectively visualizes data, allowing you to comprehend the pattern and forecast future results. The platform is an excellent option for obtaining easily accessible metrics and reports.

It is not only user-friendly, but it also protects your mission-critical corporate data. Use this tool to tailor the analytics to the needs of your team. These customized reports assist you in making decisions.

Some notable features of this application include drag-and-drop, AI-powered statistical modelling, scalable cloud-based analytics, and so on.

5. eazyBI

eazyBI allows you to create reports for data analysis without requiring a lengthy setup. You can simply create tables, graphs, and dashboards for custom fit reports with this drag-and-drop report builder.

Finding detailed insight becomes much easier when you have all of your data in front of you. This tool, in addition to fundamental analysis, provides multi-dimensional business data analysis. You may use it to do sophisticated computations, either by utilizing a provided calculation or by creating your own.

This application provides a variety of interactive data visualization chart formats, including line charts, pie charts, bar charts, graph charts, mixed charts, gauge charts, Gantt charts, and unique timeline charts. The report may be shared confidentially, exported in Excel or CSV format, or embedded to publish.

Using Project Managers to Improve Performance Reporting

For managing and understanding the trends and providing solutions someone is required to take responsibility and this is where Project Managers keep their game ahead. You can go for PRINCE2 training and certification to gain industry-agnostic project management skills.

A Project Manager is in charge of a project's planning, procurement, execution, and completion. The project manager oversees the whole project, and everything involved, which includes the project scope, project team management, and project resources. Hence, on boarding one is a good decision to improvise Performance reporting.

Conclusion

Knowing your business is more than just looking at earnings and losses and evaluating whether or not it is successful. So many elements influence your company's overall performance. A performance report will always allow you to examine your company and arrive at sound judgments. We hope we have adequately equipped you to begin generating your own performance reports. Don’t forget to go for KnowledgeHut's Project Management basics training and get trained by industry experts in live, interactive sessions.