Title: "Challenges Reporting Project Costs and Risks to Owner Decisionmakers"

Author: "Alexia Nalewaik and Jeffrey Witt"

Abstract: Owners rely on project reports in order to make decisions. However, reporting is often inadequate for this purpose. For example, there may be too much or too little information, which confuses the Board or executives. Data may be misrepresented, incomplete, unrecognized, not validated, or simply inaccurate. Owner oversight of projects requires accurate, timely, and rele- vant status reporting, yet all too often it is not provided. This article identifies common pitfalls in project reporting, discusses the differences between accounting and project management soft- ware capabilities, and provides guidelines for developing periodic, consistent, useful reports to upper management. This article was one of the technical presentations at the 2009 Annual Meeting in Seattle. It was presentation OWN.S02, and was a Women in Project Controls Task- force sponsored presentation.