Create a project progress report format for this project.
You have just become the project manager for a project to combine three separate insurance software applications. There are two different types of front-end applications and a database application where most of the data is stored. One application is ten years older than the other and handles the client data for three of the insurance packages. The other application is three year's old and handles the client data for six insurance packages. The database provides information to both of the other two systems. This has led to problems in keeping all the data synched especially for clients who are on both systems. It has also been inefficient to maintain three separate systems. So the goal of this project is to develop an application where all the data can reside with one front-end. There are customer service representatives (CSRs) for each of the two front-end applications, and each set of customer service representatives is trained only in the application they work on. So your project also includes training for the new system.
The personnel resources on your team include the content experts from the CSRs, developers, designers, business analysts, trainers, technical writers, and database engineers. Several members of the project team are internal to the company's IT department, and several have been contracted from outside companies to participate for the duration of the project. The two CSR managers want to make sure the CSRs' day-to-day work won't be affected by the conversion to the new application, but they are willing to let two CSRs participate on the project part-time as content experts.
Your project sponsor, the director of Customer Relations, likes to have a lot of control and likes to see details, but he is sponsoring several large projects and isn't a very detail-oriented person so he doesn't remember all the details. He also wants to make sure good relations are maintained between his department and IT.
The company has a standard project progress report format, shown below, but your project sponsor thinks it is too hard to find the most important information. He has asked you to give him the reports in a format that highlights the critical information while also giving him some of the less critical details.
