How to Write a Report
Analysts must report their work, usually in writing. A skilled writer does their best to impress their readers favorably with clear, understandable, but concise information that can be “digested” quickly and easily. Writing in this fashion also helps in preparing oral presentations. Follow the four rules given below for all reports for this course.
1. Imagine your audience, and write “to” them, not “at” them. Ensure you’re using plain language, and explain acronyms or terms that may not be well-known.
In this course, address your reports to your instructor and assume they may not have a background or understanding of the methodology and skill sets you have, and they are your customer that has hired you as a consultant.
Your customer relies on you for clear explanations and concise details to understand what you’re doing, what your findings are, and what you recommend as actions to correct the problems.
2. Be thorough and brief. Include all the required sections (discussed below) and incorporate creative and critical thinking when assessing the possible causes and potential solutions. Write a first draft, then edit carefully for redundancy, wordiness, clutter, etc.
3. Organize for readability into an understandable and logical format (provided on the last page).
4. Use the format provided at the end of this guide, and follow the citation and reference instructions.
Sections of the Report
1. Background. Describe in a solid paragraph the situation that is currently being assessed in the problem. Be specific, and use bullet statements to highlight problem areas from the text. Do not use bullets as your entire background! Only use them to highlight key points, if needed.
2. Analysis and findings. This section gives the reader/customer information necessary to understand or appreciate the current state of the process, and set the foundation for the next sections of the report. It puts things in focus by providing background and perspective. Assess these areas in short, succinct, but detailed sentences, and express possible reasons for these conditions to exist.
This section answers the following questions:
• What are all of the potential problems mentioned in the text?
• What are the possible causes for the current situation? Again, be creative! Think outside the box and as an objective analyst. Place yourself into the role as detective and consultant.
• What tools/techniques/methods would you use to identify, and possibly quantify/qualify, those issues?
The use of bullet points is permissible, but DO NOT use bullet points as your entire narrative analysis. Use them only to highlight key points.
Tips: Avoid using first person language “I,” “me,” etc., – you are the one presenting the information, so it is not necessary to include such language in the report. Present your objective analysis to the issues involved, and present them directly to the customer – your instructor!
Your instructor will assume the identity of the case study individuals/owners. This section should cover all of the problems, potential causes and ways to identify/measure/quantify/qualify the issues. What concepts from the chapter the study is based on would you use to accomplish these actions?
3. Recommendations. This section answers these questions:
• What tools/techniques/methods would you use to propose possible solutions to reduce or eliminate the problems?
• What tools/techniques/methods would you use to turn solutions into long-term, sustainable processes?
• How would you design and monitor the proposed solutions long-term?
• These should be based on the tools/methods that are presented in the chapters from where the case study is drawn from.