The Importance of Reporting (2024)

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Mario Courchesne The Importance of Reporting (1)

Mario Courchesne

ProCC Consultant Inc

Published Jan 2, 2023

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The main purpose of this post is to share some personal observations, ideas, tips and tricks for reporting that works well for me. Through my years I realised that I enjoyed doing reports.

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Since I am closer to reaching four (4) decades of experience, I was exposed to a very wide varieties of reports from OoM, PFS, FS, technical, surveys, construction, mechanical assessments, weekly, monthly, flash, visits, claims, audits and due diligence. They came from various sources such as engineering firms, consulting firms, suppliers, contractors, consultants and or research facilities. I also have had the opportunities to collaborate and lead many of them as well.I have witnessed the entire spectrum of reports from poorly done to high quality and excellent. Reports are important since they can decide a project future, highlight recommendations, shown options, highlights results, attract investors looking to invest in your project and or keep stakeholders informed on progress.

After all of these years I observed that not everybody is skilled or have the talent for properly write and or lead a report. The following are some of the few items that are important to consider;

  • Enjoying report writing is the first key to success of a comprehensive and good report.
  • Google translate can be used for bulk translate but some extensive time need to be dedicated after to ensure the details and technical meaning are carried properly.
  • Good reporting is a blend of various elements starting with good writing skills, a sense of artistic talent for presenting photos and graphics. Choosing fonts, colors and sizes are important to balance the visuals.
  • Never forget that you write a report for a specific audience and various people that won’t be familiar with all the details of the project. Some readers will just focus on a particular section, or the Executive Summary or just look at a particular appendix detail.
  • A proper Table of Contents is a key to ensure a proper flow and good logic to ensure the report goals are met.
  • Developing the Table of Contents, the flow of presentation and the list of appendices are the critical steps prior to doing anything. It fixes the deliverables that need to be produced to support the report. Then use that list to distribute the work to develop these deliverables and set the expectations for the level of deepness required for each of them.
  • Have your client and sponsor approval and support before starting. Too often I have seen clients or the end users disappointed of the report because they were not involved and they were expecting something else. Avoid burning all your budget ahead writing something that will need to be redone later.
  • Proof reading is crucial. I have seen a lot of report with a lot of errors, typo and not formatted properly. A report poorly written leave a bad impression and may not bring your project forward or get proper traction.
  • Have a person totally not familiar with the project read it to see if he understands the report objectives and the clarity. This is a very wise thing to do.
  • Have your report proof read by various people with various skills. I observed that not everybody has the talent to write an executive summary, in a corporate language, or have the ability to summarised concisely the information to a management level.
  • I have tried various formulas such as several people writing a different section in one (1) single document. That ends up in lack of writing uniformity and most of the time the formatting is hard to fixed. I also delegated them to various engineers to lead reports without assessing their skills. Most of the time these reports need to be redone and create a lot of frustrations and unwanted delays. This also created dissatisfaction from sponsors.
  • A report should be visually attractive with proper font selection and uniformity of fonts across the entire report. Proper size of photos and alignment, proper choice of colors is also important when doing graphics, clear scanned documents proper indenting and left-right justification. I have witnessed a lot of excel sheets poorly done, not formatted, stretched logos, nothing justified or centered.
  • A good report will always have a higher impact, maximise the chance of your project to move forward, provide confident that the home work have been done and will capture the attention of your audience.

Hoping this will help some of you in the future.

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Kevin Bolger

Manager Site General Services @ Rio Tinto | Inclusive Leadership, Coaching

1y

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Great article Mario! I can attest to Mario's quality of reports. Detailed with photos to simplify.

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Aymerie Lefebvre

Looking forward working with Bradken's customers and provide them with customized wear, mechanical and operation solutions for their mill liners.

1y

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Great points Mario! Very interesting topic!👏🏾👏🏾

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Capt. John Pace

CEO & Principal Consultant, PMC Ltd.

1y

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A very useful summmary of things to consider when writing a technical report to which I would add the importance of including a comprehensive ‘Executive Summary’.

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Serge Rodrigue NENKAM

Ph.D | PfMP | PMP | MCTS

1y

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Thank you for sharing, Mario. Good lesson learned and experience. If I may comment, I will humbly add that project reporting is specially a "Must" in the context of big projects since it supports decision-making at any stage of the project. Keeping reports simple and effective helps to avoid "bureaucraty" and paperwork. HNY

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The Importance of Reporting (2024)

FAQs

The Importance of Reporting? ›

Reporting delivers mission-critical information and raises important questions. Analysis supports developing answers to these questions and offers direct recommendations for a course of action.

What is the most important aspect of reporting? ›

Audience Consideration: one of the most crucial aspects of a report is to know your audience. As mentioned above, you cannot present the same report to a non-technical audience that you would give to higher levels of management.

Why is regular reporting important? ›

Guides decision-making

Business leaders need accurate, timely and relevant information to make smart business decisions. Regular reporting backed with actionable insights helps your decision makers to come up with logical solutions for business concerns.

What is the advantage of reporting? ›

Good quality reporting can help you to:

Strengthen relationships: stakeholders can gain a source of reliable information to understand and judge your company's performance. Enhance credibility: customers, suppliers and wider society can understand the company's values, brand, operations and products.

What is the primary purpose of reporting? ›

Explanation: The primary purpose of the reports is to analyze problems and predict practical alternatives to the problems. Reports communicate information which has been compiled as a result of research and analysis of data and of issues.

What is reporting and its importance? ›

By definition, reporting is primarily the means and measures to collect, process, store and present information within a company. Reporting is also about reducing the complex to the essential.

What is the point of reporting? ›

Reports may be formal or informal, informative or analytical. They may be intended to provide updates, influence action, provide information, and/or offer different perspectives important in an organization's discussion of an issue.

Why the report is very important? ›

Reports are important since they can decide a project future, highlight recommendations, shown options, highlights results, attract investors looking to invest in your project and or keep stakeholders informed on progress.

Why is it important to report information? ›

Reports and analytical assessments that answer relevant business questions serve as the foundation for companies to make fact-based decisions about their path forward. They help companies grow and increase profit and value. Reporting delivers mission-critical information and raises important questions.

What is the purpose of a report? ›

Reports are written to present and discuss research findings. They provide the reader with the rationale for the research, a description of the method used to conduct the research, the findings, results, a logical discussion, and conclusions/recommendations.

What makes a report useful? ›

Remember that reports are meant to be informative: to tell the reader what was done, what was discovered as a consequence and how this relates to the reasons the report was undertaken. Include only relevant material in your background and discussion. A report is an act of communication between you and your reader.

How to do effective reporting? ›

10 steps to improve your report writing
  1. Find a good role model or mentor. ...
  2. Decide what you're going to say. ...
  3. Plan the structure of your report. ...
  4. Gather & sift any source information. ...
  5. Respect intellectual property rights. ...
  6. Create a draft report. ...
  7. Engage readers by using writing techniques. ...
  8. Assess & review your draft.
Feb 5, 2024

What are the benefits of consistent reporting? ›

Choosing a consistent layout helps others understand and absorb a report quickly because they instantly know where to focus their attention. Challenges, takeaways, and data that needs to be emphasized will be displayed in the same manner each month, helping your team read the story the report's trying to tell.

What are the three main functions of a report? ›

A report is simply a document that is produced to convey information. A formal report is written in a professional and formal manner to address complex issues. Formal reports may be used to convey information, analyze an issue or problem, and provide a recommended course of action.

Which element of reporting is the most important? ›

Executive Summary

An executive summary is one of the most important elements of the report writing. It is written to give a brief overview of the report and should communicate independently. It highlights the key points of the report and evidence for them and emphasizes the conclusions or recommendations.

What is the basic of reporting? ›

Reporting involves researching and presenting information newspapers and other mass media. Reporters gather their information in a variety of ways, including tips, press releases, and witnessing an event. They perform research through interviews, public records, and other sources.

What is the most important part of a report? ›

Executive Summary

An executive summary is one of the most important elements of the report writing. It is written to give a brief overview of the report and should communicate independently. It highlights the key points of the report and evidence for them and emphasizes the conclusions or recommendations.

What are the three main aspects of reporting? ›

A formal report is a document used to communicate complex information, issues, and solutions within an organization. Learn how to write a formal report by looking into its three components: the front matter, the text, and the back matter.

What is the most important aspect of analytical reporting? ›

The most important aspect of analytical reporting is the ability to solve problems and make decisions based on facts. Attempting to make decisions based on uninformed guesses or assumptions can be problematic—analytical reporting provides tangible information to create strategy and direction."

What are the aspects of a report? ›

You may also be asked to include specific elements in your report, such as a title page, table of contents, glossary, executive summary, recommendations, or appendices. The following table shows the possible elements of a report in the order they would usually occur.

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