Chapter 14: Planning Reports and Proposals
This chapter, the first of two on preparing reports and presentations, investigates the various tasks
involved in planning longer documents. It starts with an overview of how to adapt the three-step process
to reports and proposals, then offers advice on planning informational reports, analytical reports, and
proposals.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Applying the Three-Step Writing Process to Reports and Proposals
Analyzing the Situation
Defining Your Purpose
Preparing Your Work Plan
Gathering Information
Selecting the Best Media and Channels
Organizing Your Information
Planning Informational Reports
Organizational Strategies for Informational Reports
Creating Successful Business Plans
Planning Analytical Reports
Organizational Strategies for Analytical Reports
Focusing on Conclusions
Focusing on Recommendations
Focusing on Logical Arguments
Effective Analytical Reports: An Example
Planning Proposals
Organizational Strategies for Proposals
Effective Proposals: An Example
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LECTURE NOTES
Section 1: Applying the Three-Step Writing Process to Reports and Proposals
Learning Objective 1: Adapt the three-step writing process to reports and proposals.
Reports are written accounts that objectively communicate information about some aspect of a business:
Informational reports offer data, facts, feedback, and other types of information, without analysis
or recommendations.
Analytical reports offer both information and analysis and can also include recommendations.
Proposals are a special category of reports that combine information delivery and persuasive
communication.
These reports can vary widely in length and complexity.
View every business report as an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of business challenges
and your ability to contribute to your organization’s success.
By adapting the three-step writing process, you can reduce the time required to write effective reports and
still produce documents that make lasting and positive impressions on your audiences.
Analyzing the Situation
Given the length and complexity of many reports, it’s crucial to define your purpose clearly to avoid
massive amounts of rework.
Pay special attention to the statement of purpose and take the time to prepare a work plan before
starting writing.
Defining Your Purpose
Informational reports often address a predetermined need and must meet specific audience
expectations. Sometimes, however, you will need to determine audience needs before defining the
optimum purpose.
Analytical reports and proposals are almost always written in response to a perceived problem or
a perceived opportunity.
Address the problem or opportunity with a clear statement of purpose that defines why you are
preparing the report:
The statement of purpose for an analytical report often needs to be more comprehensive than a
statement for an informational report.
Proposals must also be guided by a clear and specific statement of purpose to help focus on
crafting a persuasive message.
Preparing Your Work Plan
Carefully thinking through a work plan is the best way to make sure you produce quality work on
schedule. By identifying all the tasks that must be performed, you ensure that nothing is
overlooked.
A formal work plan might include the following elements (especially the first two):
Statement of the problem or opportunity. The problem statement clarifies the challenge you face,
helps you stay focused on the core issues, and avoids distractions.
Statement of the purpose and scope of your investigation. The purpose statement describes what
you plan to accomplish and defines the boundaries of your work. Delineating which subjects
you will cover and which you won’t is especially important for complex investigations.
Discussion of tasks to be accomplished. For simple reports, the list of tasks to be accomplished
will be short and probably obvious. However, longer reports and complex investigations
require an exhaustive list so that you can reserve an appropriate amount of time for
preparation.
Description of any additional products or activities that will result from your investigation.
In many cases, the only outcome of your efforts will be the report itself. In other cases, you’ll
need to produce something or perform some task in addition to completing the report. Make
such expectations clear at the outset.
Review of project assignments, schedules, and resource requirements. Indicate who will be
responsible for what, when tasks will be completed, and how much the investigation will
cost. Identify these limitations up front.
Plans for following up after delivering the report. Follow-up can be as simple as making sure
people received the information they need or as complex as conducting additional research to
evaluate the results of proposals included in your report.
Working outline. Some work plans include a tentative outline of the report.
Class discussion question: Have you ever “had the wheels come off” a major academic project, such as
getting near the end and discovering you were off course in a major way or struggling mightily to craft a
required report? Did you analyze why you ran into trouble? Would a more methodical approach to
planning (including outlining the report before trying to write it) have helped?
Gathering Information
The amount of information needed in many reports and proposals requires careful planning—and may
even require a separate research project just to get the data and information you need.
Prioritize informational needs before starting, and focus on the most important questions.
Whenever possible, try to reuse or adapt existing information to save time.
Selecting the Best Media and Channels
In addition to the general media and channel selection criteria already discussed, consider several
points for reports and proposals:
For many reports and proposals, audiences have specific media or channel requirements that must
be met.
Consider how audience members want to provide feedback on your report or proposal.
Will people need to search through your document electronically or update it in the future?
Bear in mind that your choice of medium sends a message.
Organizing Your Information
The length and complexity of most reports and proposals require extra emphasis on clear,
reader-oriented organization.
When an audience is likely to be receptive, use the direct approach. Lead with a summary that
consists of these elements:
Key findings
Conclusions
Recommendations
Proposal
If your audience is skeptical or hostile, consider the indirect approach:
Introduce your complete findings and discuss all supporting details before presenting conclusions
and recommendations.
By deferring the conclusions and recommendations to the end of the report, you imply that
you’ve weighed the evidence objectively.
Because both direct and indirect approaches have merit, businesspeople often combine them. They
reveal their conclusions and recommendations as they go along rather than put them either first or
last.
Section 2: Planning Informational Reports
Learning Objective 2: List the options for organizing informational reports, and identify the key parts of
a business plan.
Informational reports provide the information that employees, managers, and others need in order to make
decisions and take action. These can be grouped into four general categories:
Reports to monitor and control operations. Business managers rely on a wide range of reports to
see how well the various systems in their companies are functioning.
Plans establish expectations and guidelines to direct future efforts.
Operating reports provide feedback on a wide variety of an organization’s operations.
Personal activity reports provide information regarding an individual’s progress.
Reports to implement policies and procedures.
Policy reports range from brief descriptions of business procedures to lengthy manuals.
Position papers, sometimes called white papers or backgrounders, outline an organization’s
official position on issues that affect the company’s success.
Reports to demonstrate compliance. Compliance reports are usually created in specific formats
that must be followed exactly.
Reports to document progress. Progress reports range from simple updates to comprehensive reports.
Organizational Strategies for Informational Reports
Most informational reports use a topical organization, arranging the material by topic in one of the
following ways:
Comparison. Showing similarities and differences (or advantages and disadvantages) between
two or more entities
Importance. Building up from the least important item to the most important (or from most
important to the least, if the audience will only skim the report)
Sequence. Organizing the steps or stages in a process or procedure
Chronology. Organizing a chain of events in order from oldest to newest or vice versa
Geography. Organizing by region, city, state, country, or other geographic unit
Category. Grouping by topical category, using a pattern consistently
Creating Successful Business Plans
A business plan is a comprehensive document that describes a company’s mission, structure,
objectives, and operations. Business plans can be written or updated during three separate phases of a
company’s life:
Before the company is launched
When the company is seeking funding
After the company is up and running
The specific elements to include in a business plan can vary based on the situation. Here are the
sections typically included in a plan written to attract outside investors:
Summary. Briefly summarize the business concept, particularly the business model, defining how
the company will generate revenue and produce a profit.
Mission and objectives. Explain the purpose of the business and what you hope to accomplish.
Company and industry. Give full background information on the origins and structure of your
venture and the characteristics of the industry in which you plan to compete.
Products or services. Concisely describe your products or services, focusing on their unique
attributes and their appeal to customers.
Market and competition. Provide data that will persuade investors that you understand the target
market and can achieve your sales goals. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of
competitors.
Management. Summarize the background and qualifications of the key management personnel in
the company.
Marketing strategy. Provide projections of sales volume and market share; outline a strategy for
identifying potential customers, setting prices, customer support, and delivery of
products/services.
Design and development plans. If your product requires design or development, describe the
nature and extent of what needs to be done, including costs and possible problems.
Operations plan. Provide information on facilities, equipment, and personnel requirements.
Overall schedule. Forecast important milestones in the company’s growth and development.
Critical risks and problems. Identify significant negative factors and discuss them honestly.
Financial projections and requirements. Include a detailed budget of start-up and operating costs,
as well as projections for income, expenses, and cash flow for the first few years of business.
Exit strategy. Explain how investors will be able to sell their stakes in the endeavor and profit
from their investment.
Class discussion question: What are the risks and disadvantages of investing the time and
money required to develop a comprehensive business plan?
Section 3: Planning Analytical Reports
Learning Objective 3: Discuss three major ways to organize analytical reports.
The purpose of analytical reports is to analyze, to understand, to explain—to think through a problem or
an opportunity and figure out how it affects the company and how the company should respond.
Analytical reports fall into three basic categories:
Reports to assess opportunities. Every business opportunity carries some degree of risk and also
requires a variety of decisions and actions in order to capitalize on the opportunity.
Reports to solve problems. Troubleshooting reports are used to understand why something isn’t
working properly and how to fix the situation. The failure analysis report studies events that
happened in the past, with the hope of learning how to avoid similar failures in the future.
Reports to support decisions. Feasibility reports are called for when managers need to explore the
ramifications of a decision they’re about to make. Justification reports justify a decision that has
already been made.
Writing analytical reports presents a greater challenge than writing informational reports, for three
reasons:
First, rather than simply delivering information, you’re thinking through a problem or an
opportunity and presenting conclusions. Of key importance: avoid flawed analysis.
Second, when your analysis is complete, present your thinking in a credible manner.
Third, analytical reports often convince other people to make significant financial and personnel
decisions, so your reports carry the added responsibility of the consequences of these decisions.
Be careful not to confuse a simple topic with a problem. To help define the problems that analytical
reports address, answer these questions:
What needs to be determined?
Why is this issue important?
Who is involved in the situation?
Where is the trouble located?
How did the situation originate?
When did it start?
Not all these questions apply in every situation, but asking them helps define the problem being addressed
and limit the scope of the discussion.
Another effective way to tackle a complex problem is to divide it into a series of logical, connected
questions, a process sometimes called problem factoring:
Use the available evidence to organize an investigation or to start a search for cause-and-effect
relationships.
When you speculate on the cause of a problem, you’re forming a hypothesis, a potential
explanation that needs to be tested.
Organizational Strategies for Analytical Reports
When expecting the audience to agree with you, use the direct approach to focus attention on
conclusions and recommendations.
When you expect your audience to disagree or to be hostile, use the indirect approach to focus
attention on the rationale behind your conclusions and recommendations.
The three most common structural approaches for analytical reports are:
Focusing on conclusions (a direct format)
Focusing on recommendations (another direct format)
Focusing on logical arguments (an indirect format)
Focusing on Conclusions
When writing for audiences that are likely to accept your conclusions, use a direct approach that
focuses immediately on those conclusions.
This structure communicates the main idea quickly, but it presents some risks:
Starting with a conclusion may create the impression that you have oversimplified the situation.
Generally, take this direct approach only when your credibility is high.
Focusing on Recommendations
When structuring a report around recommendations, use the direct approach. Then unfold your
recommendations using a series of five steps:
Establish or verify the need for action in the introduction by briefly describing the problem or
opportunity.
Introduce the benefit that can be achieved, without providing any details.
List the steps (recommendations) required to achieve the benefit.
Explain each step more fully, giving details on procedures, costs, and benefits.
Summarize your recommendations. Make sure readers know the potential disadvantages as well
as the potential benefits.
Focusing on Logical Arguments
If you guide people along a logical path toward the answer, they are more likely to accept it when
they encounter it.
The two most common logical approaches are:
The 2 + 2 = 4 Approach. The 2 + 2 = 4 approach is so named because it convinces readers of your
point of view by demonstrating that everything adds up. The main points in your outline are
the main reasons behind your conclusions and recommendations.
The Yardstick Approach. The yardstick approach is useful when you need to use a number of
criteria to evaluate one or more possible solutions. These criteria become the “yardstick” by
which you measure the various alternatives.
The yardstick approach has two potential drawbacks:
First, your audience members need to agree with the criteria you’re using in your analysis. If they
don’t, they won’t agree with the results of the evaluation.
Second, the yardstick approach can get tedious when you have many options to consider or many
criteria to compare them against.
Section 4: Planning Proposals
Learning Objective 4: Explain how to choose an organizational strategy when writing a proposal.
Proposals are written for both internal and external audiences.
Internal proposals request decisions from managers within the organization.
External proposals include grant, sales, and solicited proposals.
The most significant factor in planning any proposal is whether the intended recipient has solicited that
proposal, asking you to submit it.
The formal process for soliciting proposals involves a request for proposals (RFP), which typically
include detailed instructions for content, format, and submission requirements.
Unsolicited proposals are created by organizations and individuals attempting to:
Obtain business or funding without an invitation from a potential client
Convince company insiders to adopt a program, a policy, or an idea
Unsolicited proposals differ from solicited proposals in another important respect: The audience may not
be aware of the problem, so the proposal must first convince readers that a problem or an opportunity
exists.
With virtually any proposal, you are always competing for something:
Money
Time
Management attention
Organizational Strategies for Proposals
Choosing the structure for a proposal depends on whether the proposal is solicited and, if so, whether
readers will be receptive to specific recommendations.
Audiences are likely to be more receptive with solicited proposals because the problem and the
solution have already been identified.
Use the direct approach to focus on your recommendations and why your solution is unique and
deserves close consideration.
Depending on your relationship with the recipient, the indirect approach is often better for unsolicited
proposals.
When writing unsolicited proposals, first convince the audience that a problem exists and establish
credibility. At the same time, give the reader a compelling reason to keep reading a document that he
or she didn’t request.
HIGHLIGHT BOX: ETHICS DETECTIVE
Solving the Case of the Overblown Proposals
Here are three problematic elements in that paragraph:
Overstatement: the words “Everybody” or “everyone” are used three times in this brief paragraph.
Rather than use general terms, it is better to refer to specific percentages from the testing the
company did.
The comment “everyone said it would change their lives forever” also seems overblown. While
this device is impressive, it does not seem to have the capacity to make such a grand impact on
one’s life.
You should be worried about the following comment: “We haven’t even specified the price yet, but
every single person in the room wanted to place an order, on the spot.” Again, the writer does not
provide any specifics (e.g., how many people were in the room? Were they representative of the
general population or wealthy, making price not an issue?).
Overall, this paragraph is not supported and does not offer readers specific information that is essential to
take the desired action. Due to such omissions, readers will more than likely question the writer’s
credibility.
COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES AT WARBY PARKER
Individual Challenge
Choice (a) is the best option of the four presented:
a. Yes. This introduces the idea of a competitive advantage without bringing attention to the
negative issue of the risk of buying eyewear online. The potential objection (the risk of buying
online) can be addressed within the report section.
b. No. This has a strong positive angle, but it brings attention to the negative aspect of purchase risk.
c. No. This is a nice benefit statement in general, but it is aimed too narrowly (at potential
customers only); the report has a wider audience.
d. No. This has a slightly wonky, “business-speak” tone that wouldn’t resonate with some portions
of the diverse target audience, and it emphasizes the negative aspect without introducing any
notion of positive competitive advantage.
Team Challenge
One of the challenges in a project like this is accommodating the needs of a diverse audience that can
include everyone from members of the media to prospective employees to potential customers wanting to
know more about a supplier. In addition to fact sheets on company websites, students can study the About
Us pages on company websites and the Info tabs on company Facebook pages. These often have concise
summaries of a company, its mission, and its product offerings.