Your executive committee deserves better than a spreadsheet rebuilt every Monday

Sunday evening, 10pm. An operations director is compiling the emails of six project managers for tomorrow's executive committee. Three have not replied. One has sent last week's version. The final file will be wrong the moment it goes up on the screen.

The hidden cost of reporting by hand

The problem is not only the time lost. It is the quality of the decisions:

• the information arrives late. A supplier slipping by two weeks becomes visible… three weeks later;
• the statuses are self-declared. "On track" says nothing about the budget spent or the team that is short-handed;
• the committee discusses the spreadsheet, not the projects. Half the meeting goes on checking the figures.

What an executive committee actually needs to see

Not fifty columns. For each project, four answers:

1. Where are we? Real status, deadlines.
2. What is blocked? A supplier, a decision to take, another project.
3. Who is on it? Team in place, short-handed, or nobody.
4. What is it costing? Budget committed against budget planned.

Across the portfolio of a mid-sized manufacturer, that fits in one table:

Seen like that, the agenda writes itself.

The principle: the view updates itself

A portfolio view should not have to be manufactured. It should be the direct reflection of the teams' work. Each project manager updates their project where they work; the board reads the consolidation in real time. No more collecting, no more Monday version.

What it changes in the meeting

The committee moves from "where are we?" to "what are we deciding?". Projects that are drifting become visible before they drift too far. And Sunday evening goes back to being a Sunday evening.

How Klaro Cards goes about it

Klaro Cards' Project portfolio module aggregates project data in real time: statuses, risks, deadlines and budget consumption. The portfolio view is always up to date, ready for the next steering committee. What is drifting, and why, without Excel.