Writing an analysis report

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Writing a analysis report seems like an arduous task. However, if we know the significant things to focus on, things become breeze. So, how do we go about it? Here are some tips:

1) Keep in mind your final presentation. Tell yourself what exactly you want to talk about in your report. Remember, you will have to present the report to busy stakeholders and ensure you meet their expectation and the deadline. Hence, when you can visualize what your final presentation should look like, you will be immensely productive. Don’t forget to review SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) pertaining to the area of discussion.

2) Stakeholders play the pivotal role here. You must know for whom you are writing this report. Keep in mind the following things:

a) A thing of utmost importance is identifying the decision makers and convincing them. Well, since they are at the highest level of management, they might not be interested in minute details of the problems. They would be more interested in the recommendations and resolutions. Hence, focus on those.  

b) SMEs are immensely important when it comes to analyzing the issue and making report analysis. Spend time with them. They are the ones who are detail oriented. Pay undivided attention to the points they talk about and, always discuss the problems transparently.

3) Know how you are going to deliver the report, whether it will be in the form of a document or a presentation, or both. If you are planning to deliver the report in the form of presentation:

a) Tell your audience what you are going to say.

b) Tell them all.

c) And finally, reiterate. Tell them what you said. 

4) Structuring your report is the most significant sphere when it comes to delivering your report as a document.  

a) Write a perfect introduction. Explain the reason for writing this business analysis report and ensure you mention what is the final focus on. For example, if you are looking at funding, justify the reasons as to how it will help in achieving company’s goals, strengths and mission statements.

b) Your approach should be informative but not boring. Provide information but understand you do not need to go to the depth of details, especially if you are presenting this to highly powerful stakeholders. Mention the tools and explain why they are helpful.

c) Mention the techniques used and their outcome. You don’t have to go through the process maps in in-depth details, however, ensure you pick up the important facets of process maps. The idea is to make people aware that you can spot problems. You don’t have to talk about who gave the ideas. The reason, there could be conflict between people, and you never know who has conflict with whom. Hence, talk about why an idea should be implemented rather than who gave the idea.

d) Summarize: Always use figures. Figures tell better stories. Leaders usually like reports depicting figures. Figures display the impact of space, time and money.

5) Summarizing Recommendations: Finally, summarize your recommendations. Don’t forget to categorize them. You can try to categorize recommendations for example by buckets like People, Process and System or by Time frames like short-term, mid-term and long-term.

 

Sources:

https://www.ba-guru.com/business-analyst-report/

https://bizfluent.com/how-7535399-write-business-analysis-report.html