Step 3: Highlight Reporting

A Highlight Report is used to provide the stakeholders with a summary of the project status at predefined intervals. Most organizations would expect, or at least accept, that all project must have Highlight Reports. It is something most executives will find useful, and should therefore be something you can introduce without any organizational resistance.

If a type of highlight reporting exists for projects in your organization, you should see if there is a way to get them as PRINCE2 compliant as possible without causing any disturbance. If you combine suggested changes with improvements to look and feel, the chance of getting support for your suggestions should be quite good.

Make sure the highlight report template you introduce is “executive friendly”. It should give an overview at a glance and not be filled with pages of details. You find a suggested one page PRINCE2 Highlight Report using “traffic lights” on the PRINCE2 Templatespage.

Be aware that you don’t even have to mention PRINCE2 yet. You are probably better off if you don’t. You should focus on getting some low hanging improvements done in a way that brings perceived value to the organizations. This will build some organizational readiness for a standardized project method like PRINCE2, and it will give you credibility within this domain when starting to sell PRINCE2 to key stakeholders.

Continue implementing PRINCE2 - Step 4: Glue It Together

Back to implementing PRINCE2 Step 2: Introduce Project Mandate andthe Executive Role