ASTRO Project Management template

I have been involved in many projects ranging from multiyear system implementations to short term projects involving external consultants.  The biggest hurdle I always see is communicating the ongoing progress of those projects with the team. 

• On one extreme you have PMPs(Project Management Professionals) presenting detailed gantt charts on a weekly basis which has so much information, the non-project managers of the team tunes out after 2 minutes into the review.
• Then on the other side, you have smart individuals trying to management a project who are complete scatter brains who think they can successfully manage a project without a structured process to review progress.

At the end of the day it is all about the results of the project and did it succeed.  Thus when I took on the position of leading multiple projects from large to small I created a simple template for the team to populate and review on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and I call it the ASTRO Update which is modeled after the SWOT analysis:

• A: Accomplishment
• S: Setbacks
• T: Tasks
• RO: Risk & Opportunities

Now to clarify: this is NOT to replace a full project schedule with hundreds of tasks, milestones, predecessors, etc.  It is more of a short term project management tool of getting team members together to understand the current state of the project.
 
This format works SURPRISINGLY great for all parties involved. 
 It has the benefits of:

• Focusing on individuals of the team by assigning owners rather than focusing on the process/tasks of the project; making the meeting more human and less transactional.
• Concise information.  Sorry, two pages are not allowed.  The progress presented must fit in a single page and when it does, it makes the progress meeting go fast and more importantly focuses on the important issues.
• Increases performance through visual feedback and peer pressure.  What this means is that once the ASTRO template is utilized on a repeatable basis, you start to see individuals being more engaged in the process.  The first topic is reviewing the Accomplishments since last meeting. Once you start seeing the names of those who had accomplishments, it drives others to follow suit.

Tips to implement my ASTRO template:

1. The template is best created in PowerPoint
2. Each week / meeting an entire BLANK template is created in the same PowerPoint file, just updated for the next meeting date.  After many progress reviews, you will have a history of ALL previous progress meetings to get a birds eye view of what has occurred
   1. Yes, even tasks gets wiped new.  The method I utilize is that once a task is completed, I have the individual go back into the file and STRIKE THROUGH the text of the task from the previous weeks slide.
   2. As I scroll through the previous slides, the expectation is that the tasks are all scratched out.  If a task is still open after 4 meetings, then an action needs to be taken to remedy the delayed task.
3. The navigation of presenting the template is as follows:
   1. Accomplishments:  I like to start off with positive news and understand what did the team accomplish since the last meeting.  This shows that we are moving forward..
   2. Setbacks: I then want to know what roadblocks we have ran into that are new.  This could be the delay of getting certain data which pushed back our project plan to losing a team member.
   3. Tasks: This is now the meat of the meeting and making sure everyone understands their responsibilities for upcoming tasks that needs to be completed.  As mentioned before, these tasks really should be focused on items that are to be accomplished with in a 4 week or sooner time period.  Anything further out really belongs on the master project schedule.
   4. Risk & Opportunities:  Historically this has been the least populated section of the template, but it is important because it makes team members get their heads out of the weeds and think “BIG” from a project or company wide perspective.  Think of this section as a “Heads Up” discussion point.