tree struck by lightning

You’ve probably heard the famous quote from the Irish philosopher [George Berkeley] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley): “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. Yes, you’ve probably done good work last year, but did you make sure you communicated this? I’m not talking about being a business charlatan that is always tooting their own horn, but there is sometimes the narrow assumption that good work speaks for itself. Recently, I was reminded that no matter how much good work you do, if there’s no good report associated with those accomplishments, very few would care. Guess what, you may miss a promotion, or lose that recurring business, or simply fall into the oblivion of things nobody remembers because they just work. Yes, you need to find a way to showcase your wins, your good work, your accomplishments, to your manager, your leadership team, and your customers. I’ve put together some tips to follow when you’re creating a report to showcase your work.

  1. Follow your company reporting style … and the break the rules. A great manager I had at Verizon, Patrick Gartner, told me that if you change the format that your company or your executives are used to, they will only see the formatting and may struggle to latch on with the message that you’re trying to deliver. Use the most common method and template your company has. For example, if your company generally uses PowerPoint, then use it. Choose the formatting that their used to…. And then come up with something that will help surprise them. This could be an interesting metrics analogy comparing it with a trendy show on TV or your audience’s favorite sport or music lyrics. It is a hook that will help them remember your message.
  2. Focus on metrics that matter. There could be some metrics that are meaningful to you because you believe they represent a lot of work and they should be highlighted, let’s say, number of Jira story points. Well, nobody cares about this unless it represents a measurable achievement in the bottom line (more money, more savings, more customers, faster delivery, happier customers, …). Make sure you can correlate your numbers to some business benefit and that your data can back this up.
  3. Be concise. An executive report should only have key information. One slide, one page, headlines. If you show it to a friend and they don’t understand it at a glance, simplify it.
  4. Be accurate. You want to round up numbers to look better. I wouldn’t advise it. It is better to have numbers to the last digit. This avoids lots of questions. You got 234,453 new users? That’s better than ~235K. Be ready to show month over month or year over year charts for context and evolution of the numbers.
  5. Be consistent. You now have a report that your happy about. Automate it as much as possible and send it on a regular basis to your stakeholders. This will set you apart from the majority of people that do not have consistency in reporting. What are your suggestions for a good report?