Purpose

Effort statements may be required by regulation. They are used to certify how employees have invested their time on a project. They identify not only the employee’s classification(s), but also the specific tasks he or she worked on and the amount of time invested in those tasks. The depth of reporting will be determined by contract or regulation. In some organizations, effort statements are used to augment the monthly status report with detail on resource allocation and activity.

Application

The effort statements are external documents, used when the client demands certification of performance.

Content

They contain a limited amount of information, consisting of the resource name(s) or type(s), the task(s) on which employees worked, and the amount of time consumed while working on the task(s).

Approaches

The information can be presented in a spreadsheet, table, or list. If the documents are required by regulation, the regulation may specify the formats used.

Considerations

Effort statements are certifying documents. As such, the expectation is that the information contained therein is going to be accurate. The level of reporting in the effort statement should reflect the level of team member reporting within the time management system used by the organization. If a higher level of detail is required by contract, then before the project begins, tracking mechanisms should be put in place to serve that specific level of reporting to ensure accuracy.