Project Reports: Know Your Audience
READING TIME
6 minutes
QUICK SUMMARY
Making your reporting tell a story requires you to understand your audience. This article walks through practical steps to identify the primary and secondary audiences, what they care about, and use that information to craft a report that conveys an accurate understanding of your project.
IN THIS ARTICLE, WE COVER…
Who Makes Decisions About Your Project?
Who Can Influence Decisions?
The Movie Production Analogy
What Do You Need From Them?
What Do They Care About?
Consider the Context
What This Means for Your Reports
This is the second article in a series on How to Master Project Reporting. In the first article, we established that an effective report is a succinct, written, and episodic story to decision-makers about your project return on investment.
“An effective report is a succinct, written and episodic story to decision-makers about your project return on investment.”
We went into detail about how to use reporting to tell your project’s story.
In this article, we discuss your audience and put yourself in their shoes to understand the reports that will serve them, and your project, best.
This article will prompt you to think about:
Who are your primary and secondary audiences?
What should your report communicate to each audience?
How should you tailor the content?
You can use our companion Reporting Audiences Job Aid to record your thoughts and answers as we go.
Who Makes Decisions About Your Project?
Projects usually have two kinds of decision-makers. The first are those who have been formally given project oversight, typically
The person who controls the purse strings.
The person who answers for the project’s success or failure at the highest levels of the organization.
Make sure you are clear about who acts in these roles for your project. These are your primary audience.
Tip: Use the job aid above to record the members of your primary and secondary audiences.
Who Can Influence Decisions?
There is also a secondary audience that has informal influence. They may be project stakeholders or other leaders in your organization.
Your project exists in the larger context of your organization. It may be competing with other projects for attention and resources.
Sometimes executives who don't understand the project have a way of tipping it sideways. Even those who don't have a formal role in the project can have a lot of influence.
“Even those who don’t have a formal role in the project can have a lot of influence.”
Reporting well provides a concise story that builds understanding, aligning with the needs of your primary and secondary audiences and advancing your project.
The Movie Production Analogy
To add a bit of color, we use an analogy from the movie industry. We will call the person who controls the purse strings the executive producer. The person with accountability for success is the director, which makes you (the project manager) the assistant director.
Finally, we will say our decision influencers are members of industry media. (This is not a perfect analogy, but stay with us here.)
So, now thinking as an assistant director, what information needs to be in your reports, and what drives how you put them together?
What Do You Need From Them?
Reports are your friend because they enlist the executive producer and director in the success of the project and give your project visibility at the upper echelons of the organization.
“Reports enlist decision-makers in the success of the project.”
It is unlikely that industry media will get your reports directly. However, the story you tell through your reporting can be repeated to generate positive buzz and to set expectations. You wouldn’t want news outlets to be looking for a thriller when your movie is a rom-com!
What Do They Care About?
Before you start reporting, put yourself in the executive producer’s and director’s shoes, and ask:
What is my agenda?
What do I know about the movie?
What results do I expect?
What are my pet peeves?
What is my preferred mode of communication?
Of course, you will ask the executive producer and the director what they want. Having a conversation about reporting expectations is always a good idea. Also, consult available documentation, such as charters, business cases, and organizational planning documents.
High level, what do the executive producer and the director need to know to understand your project and remain invested in its progress? What will help them keep others on board? This is the story your project reporting needs to convey.
Also, make sure you have given some thought to what industry media knows and the information they will require.
Consider the Context
Once you understand the audience, think about the context your executive producer and director are operating in.
How will they use the report? Does it feed reports that travel up the chain? Does it fit into an even larger story, for example, as one movie within a larger portfolio?
Will others see the report? Can you provide something that will make them look good to their peers? That is never a bad thing.
Is there consensus among your primary audience? I can count on one hand the projects I have been involved in where the director and executive producer were 100% aligned on the vision. Find out if this is the case for your project. Your story needs to persist through multiple levels where you have no control over how it is used. You don't get to tell the story where it really counts.
How much time will they spend on your report? Odds are, it's not very much. Think about it - your project is likely just one activity in a crowded portfolio of operations and projects your executive producer is dealing with.
“Your story needs to persist through multiple levels where you have no control over how it is used. ”
What This Means for Your Reports
Let’s refresh. A great report:
tells a story
conveying holistic return on investment
clearly and succinctly
in episodes
and in writing.
Tailor the format, content, and delivery mechanism for your executive producer and director. Tell the story that will help them to understand your project and remain invested in its progress.
Make sure the story can be easily retold to make them look good to their peers and to help them keep others on board.
Build a story that can be relayed intact to industry media and that includes the information they can use to garner the right attention for your movie.
Make it concise and easy to follow. The last thing busy people want to do is search through a project report for the information that they need to understand the context of where the project is and where it is going.
Finally, make sure it exists in written form to survive the misalignments, machinations, and diverging agendas swirling above your level.
Summary
By reporting well, you provide a concise story that provides your primary audience with an accurate understanding of your project's goals and what is happening in the project. They can then share that understanding with your secondary audience, helping to build and maintain support.
The right story will align with the needs of both audiences and advance the interests of your project.
Next Time
You may have noticed we haven’t yet touched on holistic return on investment (ROI). We will turn our attention to that in the next article.
