One of the most important tools for Portfolio Project Manager is excellent template of Portfolio Report. This document is one of more powerful tools in your equipment. It connects upper management with day to day life in company. It has power to change whole portfolio strategy for entire company. You must use it wisely and for most you need accurate and repeatable system to maintain quality and delivery on schedule. Here are absolute minimum elements you should include in your Project Portfolio Report.
- Project importance
- Portfolio status
- Portfolio data
- Overall budget
- Milestone achievement and current milestone progress
- Make it simple but useful
- Need template? Join our new course
Project importance
First you should have overall Portfolio situation on some chart (we prefer pie type) regarding project importance (% value of projects in each group). We do that because during Portfolio analysis you have to take into account how balanced your Portfolio really is. When you have long – term projects this chart may not change for some time, but it may be a case that there is a moment when you start many projects in a short time and relations between for example crucial and marginal projects will change a lot.
Portfolio status
Now we know the balance and we can present the Portfolio general status in reference to the project important. We recommend two-dimensional pie chart where you can show situation divided on Minor Major and Blocking Issues in each group presented in project importance. That will give reader a general idea about situation in company as a whole.
Portfolio data
Assuming you have less than 10 project you need to include in report, it’s a good practice to use table for presenting key parameters of each one of them. Here are some examples:- Project number,
- Project acronym,
- Project Manager name,
- Is project crucial,
- Delays in incomes,
- Blocking issues,
- Deadlines,
- Progress,
- Total income,
- Total cost,
- Total profit.
Overall budget
Finances are very important. For general information we recommend column or bar chart gathering all project on the same diagram with at least those parameters visible:- Current incomes,
- Planned incomes,
- Total incomes,
- Current costs,
- Planned costs,
- Total costs.
Milestone achievement and current milestone progress
Tracking general progress is also important. But you need to be careful and try to show it accurately. It’s a good practice to show milestones using two charts. One for milestone achievements (general situation) and one for current milestone progress in every project (current situation). That will give reader better idea about the whole situation.
Make it simple but useful
While preparing portfolio report you need to balance two things: accuracy and readability. More data means more accuracy but less readability. In portfolio report (at least brief portfolio report) try to make it simple and don’t overextend document. If upper management or other reader will have questions or need additional data they surely ask for it. Usually, the aim is to have overall view of the portfolio in the company. Monitor and pick significant changes and resolve blocking issues.
Need template? Join our new course
‘Ok, but I need straight answer / complete solution. I need portfolio report template. Where can I find it? ‘ It’s very simple. You can join our new course about creating Project Portfolio Report and use our templates as an example. Additional information:
