How to Write a Management Report

Writing management reports is an inevitable part of the activities performed by every top-class manager, whether in the field of business, healthcare, education, etc. It is very important for a good manager to be able to observe various processes running in his/her company or institution, thereby finding different issues and difficulties, and searching for their solution. Good management turns around the manager’s ability to discern what issues are of primary importance. At any rate, a company may have various issues to be addressed by the manager, but not all of them should be conceived important at a certain moment.

In this sense, a management report has the following main goals: 

• to observe a developing process which should be traced in the long run;
• to find the difficulties in the work of the company and search for solutions;
• to inform the managers that are positioned higher about the difficulties and/or the progress of a given enterprise, campaign, or any other activity.

In what follows you will find some important hints on how to write a management report. Please make sure you have enough knowledge to start writing such a report, do not rely only on the current article.

How to write a management report – 6 key tips

1. Introduce your goals and scope of analysis

A management report is meaningless without referring to its goals. The management report is always partial; it deals with a particular issue, and thus is not of universal nature. Therefore, in the beginning specify your goals for writing this report.

2. Clarify the methodology of the management report

In what way you have gathered the data collected, within what period of time, and so forth. Here is the right place to also point out all additional information - place of doing your research, context, etc.

3. Expose information by using diagrams, tables and other forms of statistics

Ensure you have used proper software for doing this. If you are not very experienced in that, you can search on the internet for special report forms as well as software.

Be careful: the information should be divided into several parts if it is necessary. For example, if you analyze three different activities, they should be presented separately.

Another flaw present in many management reports is the irrelevancy of the information to the main goal of the report and to the conclusion. Thus, you need to show very clearly the inner logic of the report - that you have analyzed such and such thing, and have arrived at such and such conclusion after analyzing available information.

4. Define your terminology

The terminology used should be defined pretty clearly. Of course, it is always welcome to use special terms and phrases (typical of the relevant academic field), but sometimes they need to be defined as to not to allow for different interpretations. You can avoid this by using simple words and phrases as well as accurate description of facts.

5. The aesthetical part of the management report

You have to think also how you will present the current management report in front of your audience. Hence, it should be short enough not to make the audience (or your interlocutor) bored. You should also put stress on your communication skills, i.e. to be able to speak fluently and convincingly. Be ready to defend your conclusion.

6. Conclusion or this is the solution to the given problem

You need to formulate it as to be clear how to overcome the given difficulty in a practical way. Don’t be afraid to express yourself – people are going to listen to you if you think logically.

Writing a management report requires patience, good observation skills and also excellent analysis of the information collected.