Progress Reports

Purpose

Progress reports are meant to inform a supervisor, associate, client, or customer about the progress you’ve made on a project over a given period of time.

  • These are common in the science, engineering, and business fields, where a research team may need to report to a funding agency about the progress of their work they have been tasked to complete.
  • You generally write a progress report for projects that require a lengthy time to complete, such as three of four months.
  • They can also be used to clarify points of your project, explain why you took certain measures to complete a task, or pose questions to your clients about how you should proceed.

Content & Formatting

In a progress report, you should address the following:
  • How much of the work has been completed?
  • What part of the work is currently in progress?
  • What work is remained to begin?
  • What problems or unexpected things have come up during this process?
  • Are you on schedule to complete the project by the given end date?
  • How is the project coming along as a whole?

Like other kinds of reports, you should format the document according to the style guide your employer or organization uses. Remember to include a header containing who the report is directed to, who it is from, the date, and the subject or title. Each section in the report needs a succinct, descriptive heading that tells the reader what to expect. A report is not like a formal letter and, therefore, does not need a signature block. You can see one way to format a progress report in the example below.

Example

Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech

Importance

  • Progress reports improve the relationship between you and the client by assuring the client of your progress. They also ensure transparency and accountability by showcasing a paper trail of your previous work.
  • Progress reports help to avoid confusion among people working on the particular project so they all know where the project currently stands.
  • Progress reports facilitate collaboration between group members by making sure there are no redundancies in the tasks that groups members are completing.
  • If other projects attached to your project hinge on the completion of your project before the other one can be started, writing a progress report helps the future planning of those documents. Workers on other projects will be notified what progress you’ve made and will know when to begin their project.

Sources

by Jakob Cole