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You will submit an internal progress report for this course. It’s similar to the kind of progress report that you might give to your manager or co-workers to let them know what’s happening with a project.
You also need to know about how to write external progress reports, which will go to clients or stakeholders outside your organization. While the general purpose is the same as that for an internal progress report, the audience is quite different.
The Lynda.com video Using in-progress reports to communicate with clients (4m 23s) will walk you through the key features and the important characteristics of this kind of progress report.
Note: This video has closed captioning, so it does not need a transcript.
2 Comments
I would say the important part of writing a progress report is to not mislead the client. You have an agreement with them saying what you are going to do. Keeping regular, truthful progress reports coming is a necessity for the client to remain confident that they made a smart choice in trusting you with their resources. For internal reports, keeping your boss up to date as to what you’re working on or if you have any problems that are slowing you down is very useful to not just you, but your boss as well. Things are easier and work better when communication is regular and honest.
I feel that an external progress report may be more daunting to write. If you’re informing only reporting to your employer, he or she will at least have some idea of what your previous work ethic has been up to that point, and there is a greater level of understanding and comfort between the two of you. However, clients can be faraway and may not know you as well, meaning that they do not know how well you work and how well you recover from setbacks. This could cause some uneasiness on their end with your progress, forcing you to be more literal with your progress reports and more proactive with the information you are presenting.