How to Write Quality Consulting Reports

Most consulting reports are made with PowerPoint. It is not that easy to prepare nice looking slides and at the same time to have good quality content. 
I prepared 10 questions to ask yourself every time you are writing a report to guide you through the process of preparing good quality content reports.

Before
1. "Is the narrative of the report coherent?" Before opening PowerPoint, make sure you write down the storyline and review it with your manager. The storyline should be coherent and tells an actual story.

2. "Is the purpose of this slide clear?" Write the titles/leads/taglines of each slide. Do not leave any slide without a clear purpose in the presentation; you are not paid by the number of words. It's also important for each slide to address one purpose, not multiple ones at the same time.

While

3. "Will the reader be able to understand it?" Put yourself in the reader's shoes. If you think it is a bit confusing, write it differently and ask yourself again, "Will the reader be able to understand it?"

4. "Do I really understand it?" You might be asked to add a section in the report that you don't fully understand. Make sure you know what you are talking about, because if you don't, you client might and will get back to you for clarifications or with correction requests.

5. "Are all acronyms explained?" Make sure to have most acronyms explained somewhere. (USD is fine, but CAGR not every reader will know it).

6. "Are all graphs, axes, units clearly labelled?"

7. "Am I using words easy to understand?" Avoid using consultant jargon such as Core Competencies, Takeaway, Close the loop -etc. Use them in the proposals but not in your final report.

After

8. "Am I satisfied with my work?" Don't send a report you are not satisfied with, because if you aren't, your manager and your client won't be neither. It's better to miss a deadline to the limit of the possible than send a bad quality work.

9. "Did I proofread my work?". Printing the report in hardcopy makes it easier to proofread (other than grammatical mistakes, don't miss the extra space like this  one.). You may ask someone else to help you with the proofreading as well.

10. "Am I sure I didn't miss anything?" Once you are done preparing your work and finished writing the email, open the files you attached to the email and read them again. This might sound unnecessary but it actually helps spotting mistakes you have missed.

I hope you found this helpful. Please leave your comment below if you have any question or  any recommendation to share.

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