Project status report: a template and an AI-assisted example
Prepare a useful project status report with a reusable template, a worked example and an AI workflow that connects progress and decisions to evidence.
8 min read
Programme steering is about propagation
A project has a goal, a team and a date. A programme has several of each, linked. Each project is already steered on its own; the programme is steered between them. The hard part is not the volume of information but its transversality: a two-week slip on the authentication workstream is not a local problem when three other workstreams wait for its API. Task tools show each project. They rarely show the propagation.
What an AI agent does well here
- Consolidates signals from every project — remaining work versus capacity, blockers, pending decisions, open risks — onto one scale.
- Spots slipping dependencies by comparing the expected date with the probable date, and says so when the gap appears, not at the next committee.
- Drafts the trade-offs. Reassign, postpone, cut scope, accept the delay: each option costs the other projects something. The agent writes the options with their known effects.
- Executes what was approved, under permissions: anything that touches another project becomes a proposal, never a direct change.
Where the agent stops
An agent that settles a programme’s trade-offs is a bad agent, even when it is right. The decision commits teams and budget and needs a named human owner. The agent knows the programme’s data, not the client who promised a date verbally or the team coming out of three hard months. And teams accept an agent preparing the committee; they do not accept one cutting their scope. In Stellary that boundary is a setting: a steering agent runs in supervised or approval mode, and cross-project actions are proposals.
The weekly loop
- Goals and margin per project — what each can lose before it endangers the programme.
- Consolidated signals — the portfolio view the programme lead opens on Monday.
- Gaps and options — for every signal off trajectory, the agent drafts the options.
- Decisions on record — date, owner, rationale, expected effect, triggered actions.
- Actions and follow-up — the agent executes what was approved and reports the effect the following week.
FAQ
What is AI-assisted programme steering?
Using AI agents to consolidate the signals of several linked projects — progress, dependencies, margin, risks — and to prepare the programme lead’s trade-offs. The agent reads, computes and proposes; the decision stays human, and every cross-project action goes through an approval.
Can an AI agent arbitrate between two projects?
It can prepare the arbitration: options, known costs, effects on the other projects. It should not settle it: the decision commits teams and budget and depends on context the board does not hold.
