When to Create Customized Stakeholder Reports

Standardized project communication is part of effective stakeholder management, and yet at times customized reports may be best. Here are tips for when to invest the additional effort to create customized reports:

A key stakeholder has unique priorities. Stakeholders have unique priorities. Often, customized reports are needed to address those priorities. For example, your finance director may be the only stakeholder interested in your project cash flow from month to month. A project report with specific spending details for your influential and engaged finance director may be appropriate to keep your project moving forward. Don’t volunteer to provide customized reports for every unique stakeholder priority, but be prepared to do so when required to secure stakeholder buy-in.

A risk mitigation strategy calls for customized reports. Awareness can be an effective risk mitigation response. For example, if staff shortages present a project risk, a customized report for the staffing coordinator to address planned versus actual staff hours would be a prudent risk response. Customized reporting can also identify risk triggers that signal a risk coming to fruition and invoke response strategies. While standard reports can usually do this, other reporting may be necessary to surface risk triggers to keep your project on track.

The project gets stuck. Information is usually step 1 for getting a bogged project going again. Customized reports for key stakeholders could be the catalyst for resetting your struggling project. For example, if your stakeholders have conflicting project objectives, customized reports that feature each stakeholder’s area of interest can maintain buy-in and get the project re-focused — or keep it from stalling in the first place.

A stakeholder is stuck.  Influential stakeholders may need to see data presented in a different format or require more detail before they give you their support. After trying to emphasize control capabilities using standard reports, consider alternative reporting to get the support of a critical stakeholder.

You need to reinforce a point. As project managers, we often have foresight to outcomes that busy stakeholders don’t see. Customized reports that demonstrate your concern can be effective in getting the support you need. Say a senior leader gives his staff a generic direction like “make time to work on this project.” As a project manager, you may know that staff is struggling with their everyday operational tasks and will have difficulty accomplishing project work. If your pleas to the senior leader for more detailed direction fall on deaf ears, a report that shows actual allocation of work to the project versus the senior leader’s expectation might demonstrate the need for more detailed prioritization from the leader.

For more about stakeholder management and communications, check out Doug Rose’s Project Management Foundations: Communication course.

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