No matter what type of occupation you find yourself employed in…there will be a time (or maybe even often) that you will be required to provide a status/performance report to those supervising you.  And it is almost ironic that more recently in my consulting worlds-of-work that a number of questions have been raised about MY ideas about what approaches I believe make a GREAT and not just a mediocre report.  So with these thoughts in mind…I decided to dedicate this week’s TRIPLE III TIME message to:  Building YOUR Report with a special TOP 10 list of suggestions.

1. Assess your audience (think about age, job connections, interest levels, personal qualifications, etc.)
2. Use “At-A-Glance Understandability” as a priority as you are Building YOUR Report.
3. Be sure to state the major purpose of your report within its content…almost immediately.
4. As appropriate make performance comparisons (via competition/past performance/goals set).
5. Include visuals as a simple means of making specific points.
6. Build in a pie charts or graphs to reflect numerical information.
7. Try to incorporate bullet-point narrative details to offer short explanation specifics.
8. Be versatile in data reporting by use of percentages, dollar amounts, sizes, etc. (NOT just numbers).
9. “Proof-read” as you are Building YOUR Report to ensure there is NOT a need to “evaluate-this-evaluation”.
10. Lastly always finish your report document with an invitation to everyone to add-to and/or recommend revisions.

With all of the advanced systems for completing quality research, accessing world-wide information and maintaining up-to-date data collection options… Building YOUR Report can be an innovative opportunity.

Remember quality is not measured by the length of YOUR report…and authenticity matters.