Love it or hate it, reporting is a part of business life and plays a huge role in project management – continuing with our PMO themed articles, today we shall look at what to include in your PMO CV. So there are a few versions of reports used within the PMO which are (or should be) targeted towards specific groups of people, depending on your PMOs service you will invariably be required to create, maintain and update an overall programme plan and more than likely hold the control of individual project status reports.

Pulling together information to create a management report is an essential part of successful PPM support, knowing what is going on within  the programme and ensuring interdependencies are aligned are core competencies asked for by hiring managers for their PMO. I have read thousands of PMO CVs over the years and more than half of them have no reference to reporting within the role remits, regardless of seniority of role this information is missing. It is also important for those wishing to make a career change into project management and specifically a PM support role talk about reporting in their CVs. It is a transferable skill which does tend to closely align with job descriptions in the field of PM.

So, what kind of reports are you generating/updating/monitoring/presenting? Financial reports are very important, especially for the more complex programmes of work which can easily spiral out of control. Let’s look at some of the other core project documentation which is reviewed against reports to ensure the project/programme is still inline with strategic goals.

• The Business Case should describe the value to the sponsor from the outcomes of the programme.
• The Project Plan should define the product being produced, resources and time needed for all activities, also covering any dependencies between activities
• Project Initiation Document (PID)  defines significant aspects of the project and forms the basis for its management and the assessment of overall success.
• Stage Plan will detail how and when the objectives for the stage are to be met by presenting the deliverables, activities and resources required.
• The Work Package provides information needed to deliver one or more specialist products.
• The Change Control Strategy documents the procedure to ensure that the processing of all Project Issues is controlled.
• Highlight Reports    provide the Project Board (and other stakeholders) with a summary of the stage status at intervals defined by them.
• Project Issue Log     – an issue can have a negative or positive impact on the project.
• Risk Management Log         – risks can be threats to the successful delivery of the Programme or Project.
• End Stage Reports summarises progress to date and should provide an overview of the project.
• Post Project Review documents if business benefits have been realised and recommendations for future improvements should also be recorded.

Of course you know all this, but looking at it listed in black and white should really prompt some thoughts about just how important reporting is and how embroiled it can be, so don’t assume that the recruiter/hiring manager/HR know you are analysing all this data and pulling together information for your programmes of work – talk about it on your CV!