Observatory Reporter
Observatory Reporter is a component of the Project Observatory system. It is an application which allows you to report project status and resource requirements in just a few minutes by filling out a form. Reporter replaces your paper project reports with a method that collects status and resource information quickly and easily. It can be used from a web browser or a Notes client.

To make a successful project office, you need to have information about all projects and all of their resource requirements. If your organization is like most, many of your projects don't have critical path schedules, and few of your project leaders are expert planners. Reporter makes it practical to gather the management information you need from your project leaders without impacting their productivity. Equally important is the fact that Reporter requires little or no training. Thus you can deploy it immediately to record ongoing projects and new proposals.

What are you doing? Who do you need? How are you coming?
This tool collects the information that every project leader can provide. It does not require the project leader to define tasks or construct Gantt diagrams. All that is required is some project identification, a short synopsis of the schedule, a list of any management issues, and resource requirements.

The open design of Project Observatory means that you can have any mix of Reporter, Microsoft Project, Project Gateway, and other sources of information working simultaneously. And you can begin a project in Reporter and later switch to another system.

What kinds of projects are appropriate?
Observatory is very well suited to projects that would not normally benefit from task level planning. This includes many IT projects, particularly those for maintenance and infrastructure development. It includes research projects such as those found in great numbers in the pharmaceutical industry. It includes all kinds of project proposals. And it includes projects led by people who would not normally use a critical path planning tool. In general, its a good tool when the focus is on milestones and staffing levels. When detailed task management is needed, you should use a task based tool for planning and a repository for group communication.

One area of particular value is for consulting organizations. Project leads can use the web to provide frequent schedule updates to headquarters so resources can be better deployed.

A method of project journalism
Reporter provides a step by step approach which simplifies and organizes the project reporting process. When used from the web, the user simply walks through a series of pages, each of which collects a part of the project situation. Each page concentrates the users attention on one aspect of the information - Definition, Milestone Schedule, Issues, Resources, Costs. The same walkthough is done when updating the report so it quickly becomes familiar.

Templates make for more consistent results
Observatory Reporter allows you to predefine any number of templates. Templates set the initial milestones, resources, and project description so that the project leader can spend time thinking rather than typing.

Maintaining information over the life of the project A project leader can update a project at any time. These updated reports will be sent to the Observatory automatically. Observatory will also send the project owner an email reminder when updates are overdue. If these reminders are lost or ignored, then the designated program manager will be notified.

Full Observatory Services
Even though Reporter is easy for the project leader to use, you still get the full services of the Observatory System. This includes skill tracking, forecasting, dashboarding, metrics, and briefings.

Comparing Reporter to Critical Path Planning
The real difference between using Observatory Reporter versus using a critical path scheduling tool such as Microsoft Project is the level of detail which is entered by the planner. With Reporter, you simply state the dates of milestones, name the resources, and specify the level of effort needed (e.g. Fulltime,25% etc.). In contrast, when using a critical path scheduling tool, you define the work in terms of detail tasks and their interrelationships. Then you estimate the work for each resource on each detail task. This data is used to calculate a detailed schedule. That data is then summarized to provide a management report.

From a PMO perspective, you get the same kind of results (milestone dates and resource requirements) from both methods.

Does the detailed plan give more accurate forecasts? It depends. Some projects are simply more predictable than others. Some are so complex in structure that you must use a modeling tool to visualize them. But using these tools requires time and planning skill, which is often in short supply. So the best practice is to reserve your planning skills for the projects that require them and use Reporter for the more straightforward work.

Deployment Options You can deploy Observatory Reporter to operate as one or more web sites, or as a personal database on a laptop, or as a multi-user database on a departmental server. Each database can handle an unlimited number of projects. It is a very flexible application in this regard.

What information is reported?

General Information
The user provides a name for the project, an email address for the project manager, the name of the sponsor (if one exists) and whether the project is approved or only a proposal.

Status
The project leader can enter a short situation report and select a status category that will be shown in the Observatory.

Schedule You must have an expected start and finish date. You can revise these at any time. You should also enter a list of you project events (milestones) and the expected dates for each. This provides a simple, easily understandable way to help others understand where you are going and how far along you are.

Issues "Issues" are problems that need to be resolved. You can list issues here so they will be shown in the observatory report; hence, visible to interested management. You can also identify the due date for the resolution of the issue and its current status.

Staffing Management really needs to know what resources are required. The staffing section of the form lets you list each person or department that you need and how much time should be allocated. This is done in three parts. First, you enter the actual time being used right now. Second, you specify the requirements for the next 4 weeks. Third, you enter your requirements for the remainder of the project. Requirements are written simply as "2 people full time" by selecting from list of options.

Actual Time, Costs and Targets The project report provides a way for the project leader to report actual time spent for each week. It allows costs to be entered, both as actual costs and as cost of completion estimates. The Observatory Reporter allows management targets for time, cost and effort to be specified. These targets are used to set the dashboard indicators in the observatory.

For more information
Read about Observatory Reporter in the System Guide
Notes Operation (PDF Format)
Web Operation (PDF Format)