Management report is a formal business report that is to present to the management team or board of directors to make management decisions. When writing your management report, it is important to consider the management report scope, management report purpose and management report format.
Management Report Basics
Management report needs to consider the scope and objectives of the report. When writing your management report, it is crucial to consider the scope of the report. A frequent mistake of many business reports is that the report writer makes the scope of a report too general or vague. If the purpose is too general, it will reduce the arguing power for your key message and points delivered in the report. As top management team are often busy with strategic decisions and various recommendations, They will have had time in reaching conclusions after reading your report.
Management report needs to consider the target audience. When writing your management report, it is imperative to know your target audience as the supporting information and documents in your report may change with different levels of management team. You may need to ask the following questions before your report:
- What is the key objectives of the report? It is for strategic management decision, for operation planning or resources allocation?
- Whether the topics is familiar with the target audience?
- What is the position of the target audience in the decision process?
Management Report Format
When writing management report, you need to have a proper outline for your management report. The following is the main structure of your report.
Executive summary: In your executive summary, you need to present your key findings and points, your executive summary should be in one page especially if the report is to present to top management team.
Report main body. In the main body part, you need to give your findings, supporting information. The supporting information should be carefully selected to support your main conclusions.
Report Conclusion part. After you have presented your key findings and supporting information, you need to give your detail analysis on the findings and give your key points and conclusions or solutions to the business problem.
Management Reporting Writing Guidelines
As management report is a formal report, you need to make sure that your report needs to have the traits of coherence, balance and accuracy.
When writing your report, you need to make sure that your supporting information is accurate, you need also carefully choose your words so that it can deliver your intended message to the target audience.
Balance means that you should be impartial to the different arguments and ideas presented in the report. You need to present all key information and arguments that are against the conclusion and for the conclusion.
Coherence means that you need to be consistence in your logic and information presenting. Your information presentation and report structure should lead the readers naturally to the conclusions in your report.