Re: Progress reporting

["Lisa Bronson" <Lisa -dot- Bronson -at- ipaper -dot- com>]

My manager is also the manager of our production engineering department. He
has the three managers under him report to him using a spreadsheet he
designed, and those managers have their people report to them on the same
form. Recently, he decided to have us writers report to him this way, also.

The spreadsheet has columns for: Task Description, Date Assigned, Date Due,
Hours Completed, Start Date, Finished Date, Hours Remaining, Scope, and
Status. He is most interested in the Hours Remaining, and has a calculated
field to show our backlog. His secondary interest is that we have a list of
projects, so nothing slips through the cracks (we often wait months between
the time we hear about a project and when we actually get information about
that project).

My favorite parts of the spreadsheet are Scope and Status. This helps me
keep track of what I'm supposed to do, what I've already done, and
(sometimes) who's holding up my progress by not responding to my requests
for information or reviewing what I've given them.

Two-four times a month, I meet with my manager to discuss my progress
report. This has helped me a lot to be able to keep track of my work load
and keeps the prioritizing of projects in his court (this is where his
being manager of production engineering is really quite helpful!).

Lisa B.

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~
Lisa Bronson
Associate Technical Writer
Evergreen Packaging Equipment
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
319-399-3239
~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~

"They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always
seemed  to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered
with better  soil and with a higher grade of manure." -- Ernest  Hemingway



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  |       To:       TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>                                                        |
  |       cc:       (bcc: Lisa Bronson/Beverage Packaging/IPAPER)                                                |
  |       Subject:  Progress reporting                                                                           |
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Those of you who have some sort of formal/semi-formal way of
reporting your progress on documentation projects, what do
you do?








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