Progress Reports: An Introduction

Is your project coming in under budget?  Will it be done on time?  How much work have you done thus far? Have you run into any obstacles that might delay completion of the project?

The progress report is designed to answer just those sort of questions for your reader, whether that person is the teacher, who has assigned you a report to be turned in by X date; your boss, who wants to know whether you’ve made any headway on that investigation he assigned you; or your client, who wants to know if you’re spending his or her money wisely.

Simply put, the purpose of a progress report is to inform your reader how much work you have accomplished on a particular project and how much you have left to do.