Perfection is not…
/"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Read MoreHelping public sector managers get value for money from their budgets
A blog about public financial management: the fine art of managing public money to deliver vital services to the public. It involves budgeting, accounting, controlling, auditing, reporting, policy-making and decision-taking.
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Read MoreWhen I teach online or in-person the institution that hired me usually wants feedback from students/learners.
I’ve learned that many students or learners are uncomfortable about being asked to give feedback. It feels like they are criticising. I ask them for advice instead.
Read MoreWhether writing an email or a 20-page report we tend to think of it needing a beginning, middle and end. This encourages to adopt a (chrono)logical structure along the lines of:
Here’s a problem ==> This is the cause ==> Analysis of possible solutions ==> recommended solution
The problem with this kind of structure, for busy people at work, is that the important bit is at the end. They have to work through all your analysis to get to the answer. Report-writing is not (or should not be) a way for you to show off about all the analysis you have done.
A better way, one focused on the needs of the reader rather than the vanity of the writer, is to bring the end to the front of the report. Tell the reader the recommendation first and then explain why. This means a structure along the lines of:
Here’s the recommended solution to a problem ==> Why is that the recommendation? ==> analysis of possible solutions
One advantage of this structure is the potential for it to be framed more positively. It starts with suggestions for solutions (improvements over the status quo) rather than the negative experience of describing a problem or challenge.
Next time you are planning a report see if you can structure it so that the reader gets the conclusion/recommendation without having to read a long story.
The moral of this story is that sometimes we do not achieve our goals in the way that we imagined them. Yes, I would like to have become a novelist and to earn a living as a full-time writer. Even so, I am a published author and there are people who pay me to put abstract concepts into words. All in all, things have worked out very well in the second half of my career.
Read MoreIf a picture paints a thousand words, how many words does a table of data save?
However, a table is a wasted opportunity if the reader skips over it.
I have a tip to make the tables in your documents have more impact?
Read MoreLearn how to show the invisible, non-printing formatting characters so that you can fix layout problems in your documents.
Read More© Gary Bandy 2024