This document outlines 5 steps for monitoring project progress: 1) Create a comprehensive project plan, 2) Create a baseline of the initial project plan, 3) Have team members regularly enter progress updates, 4) Analyze actual versus planned progress using software reports, 5) Produce regular reports to share progress with stakeholders. Monitoring progress through automated updates and reports helps ensure projects stay on track for successful completion.

1. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
How to Monitor
Your Project
Progress
Asif Kabani

2. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
Summary
• If you don't keep a close watch on progress there is
a chance that your project will go off-track and
you'll fail to complete it successfully. The trick is to
make progress tracking really easy. If it is
straightforward for you and the team, then you'll be
able to monitor progress with a few clicks. Here's
how to get started.
• Your projects will be changing from day-to-day, so
you need to monitor progress to make sure you're
on top of everything.

3. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
The Steps
Step 1: Create
your plan
Step 2:
Baseline your
plan
Step 3: Enter
progress
information
Step 4:
Analyze the
results
Step 5:
Produce
reports

4. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
Step 1: Create your plan
• You can't monitor progress unless you have a plan
to monitor against! The first step, then, is to put
together a comprehensive project plan. Work with
your project team to create a task list that covers all
the work that you need to do on your project.
• When you know what tasks are involved, you can
enter them into your online project management
software, arrange them in the right order and
create links between tasks if you need to.

5. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
Step 2: Baseline your
plan
• Take a snapshot of your plan in its current format.
This is called a baseline and it gives you something
to compare to later, if your schedule changes. You
can create baselines at any point during the
project. It is a good idea to save one at the
beginning of the project and then to take another
one after any major revision to your plan.

6. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
Step 3: Enter progress
information
• Your team members will now be making progress on
their project tasks, so ask them to keep the software
up-to-date by recording their progress online. As
they enter the time spent on a task in their
online software, you can immediately see the
impact on the project plan.

7. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
Step 4: Analyze the
results
• Compare the progress you were expecting with the
actual progress that the team has made. You can
do this easily in your software by looking at views
that show you actual versus planned progress to
date. You can also see how much time has been
spent on any individual task and the amount of
time spent on the project overall.

8. (kabani.asif@gmail.com)
Step 5: Produce reports
• Use reports to display your progress data in different
ways. This is a good option if you want to share your
project progress information with team members or
your project sponsor. You can produce reports in a
number of formats so that everyone gets the
information they need in a way that suits them.
• Reports are a very useful way of quickly seeing if the
project is on track. Set up some template reports to
make life easier and to ensure your progress data is
presented consistently with every project.