Report Types

8/8/2019 Report Types

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1

Lecture 2: Types of Report


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y Informative Report

y Explanatory Report

y Discussive Report

y Persuasive Report

Note: Content for the above topics will be provided in the

handout.

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TYPES OF TECHNICALTYPES OF TECHNICAL

REPORTSREPORTS

TYPES OF TECHNICALTYPES OF TECHNICAL

REPORTSREPORTS

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Types of Technical Reports

1. Feasibility report

2. Recommendation report

3. Evaluation report

4. Technical Background Reports5. Primary research report

6. Business Prospectuses /Plans

7. Technical specifications


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1. Feasibility report

y Discuss the practicality, and possibly the suitability andcompatibility of a given project, both in physical andeconomic terms.

y They also discuss the desirability of the proposed projectfrom the viewpoint of those who would be affected by it.

y This is formal document for management use, brieflyenough and sufficiently non technical to beunderstandable by high level management

y The feasibility study can be defined as the preliminarystudy that is being conducted to examine whether acertain project is capable of being done in a practical anduseful way.


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Feasibility report

y In another words in an efficient and effective way, and theoutcome of this study helps in the decision whether toproceed with the project ornot.

y If we examine from another angle there is anotherobjective behind the feasibility study and i.e. what

possible problems that can occur during the project andbased on this analysis some best possible alternativesolutions are designed and recommendation on the bestalternative solution is also formed.

y The feasibility report answers the question "Should weimplement Plan X?" by stating "yes," "no," but more often"maybe." Not only does it give a recommendation, it alsoprovides the data and the reasoning behind thatrecommendation


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y You must be unbiased and your approach must be logical.

Be sure that you know the precise purpose of theproposed project and also its scope.

y Report writers must come to a conclusion, and must

recommendthat some action is taken or is not takenand/or that some choice is adopted or is rejected.

Feasibility report


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The primary objective of feasibility report

is to inform about the following matters.

1. What the proposed system will achieve.

2. Who will be involved in operating the proposedsystem in the organization?

3. The benefits that system will give.

4. The organizational changes needs for itssuccessful implementation.

5. The estimated cost of the system.

All these are given in technical and simple language andthe beginning of the report as an executive summary. It isfollowed by the detail feasibility report .


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2. Recommendation report

yA recommendation report compares two or morealternatives and recommends one (or, ifnecessary, none).

y This type starts from a stated need, a selectionof choices, or both and then recommends one,some, ornone.


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Feasibility report Vs Recommendation

report

y For exampley A college might investigate the feasibility of giving every

student an e-mail address and putting many of the collegefunctions online.

y

The same college might also seek recommen

dations o

nthe best hardware and software to use (after the feasibility

report had determined it was a good idea).

y In practice, however, it's hard to keep these two kinds ofreports distinct.

y

Elemen

ts of the feasibility and recomme

ndatio

nreportintermingle in specific reportsbut the main thing is to get

the job done!


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3. Evaluation report

An evaluation orassessmentreport studies something in termsof its worth or value

This type provides an opinion or judgment rather than a yes-no-maybe answer or a recommendation.

It provides a studied opinion on the value orworth of

something.

For example

for over a year the city ofAustin had free bus transportation in anattempt to increase rider ship and reduce automobile traffic.

Did it work? Was it worthwhile?--These are questions anevaluation report would attempt to answer.

This type of report compares a thing to a set of requirements (orcriteria) and determines how well it meets those requirements.


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y

The distinctions among three report types are ratherfine; and they overlap.

y In real-world writing, these types often combine--youmight see elements of the recommendation reportcombine with the feasibility report, for example. Ofcourse, the writers of these reports don't care whichtype they are writing--and well they shouldn't!They're trying to get a job done.


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Recommendation Report

y Introduction

y Technical Background

y Background on the Situation

y Requirements and Criteria

y Discussion of the Options

y Category-by-Category Comparisons

y Conclusions

y

Recommen

dation

orF

in

al Opin

ion


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Technical Background

y Some feasibility reports may require some technicaldiscussion in order to make the rest of the reportmeaningful to readers.

y The dilemma with this kind of information is whether to putit in a section of its own or to fit it into the comparison

sections where it is relevant.y For example, a discussion of power and speed of laptop

computers is going to necessitate some discussion ofRAM, megahertz, and processors. Should you put that in asection that compares the laptops according to power andspeed? Should you keep the comparisonneat and clean,limited strictly to the comparison and the conclusion?

y Maybe all the technical background can be pitched in itsown sectioneither toward the front of the report or in anappendix.

Ctd..Typical Contents of the Feasibility/ Recommendation Report


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Background on the Situation

y For many feasibility reports, you'll need to discuss the

problem, need, or opportunity that has brought about

this report. If there is little that needs to be said about

it, this information can go in the introduction.



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Requirements and Criteria

yA critical part of feasibility and recommendationreports is the discussion of the requirements you'lluse to reach the final decision or recommendation.

y If you're trying to recommend a laptop computer

for use by employees, there are likely to berequirements concerning size, cost, hard-diskstorage, display quality, durability, and batteryfunction. What it would be expected to accomplish,

problems that it would have to avoid, and so on.



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Discussion of the Options

y In certain kinds of feasibility or recommendation reports,you'll need to explain how you narrowed the field ofchoices down to the ones your report focuses on.

y Additionally, you may need to provide brief descriptions

of the option

s themselves.y Don't get this mixed up with the comparison that comes

up in the next section.

y In this section, you provide a general discussion of theoptions so that readers will know something about them.

y

The discussion

at this stage isnot comparative.

It's just ageneral orientation to the options.

y In the laptops example, you might want to give somebrief, general specifications on each model about to becompared.



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Category-by-Category Comparisonsy One of the most important parts of a feasibility or recommendation

report is the comparison of the options.

y Remember that you include this section so that readers can check yourthinking and come up with different conclusions if they desire.

y This should be handled category by category, rather than option byoption. If you were comparing laptops, you'd have a section that

compared them on cost, another section that compared them onbattery function, and so on.

y You wouldn'thave a section that discussed everything about option A,another that discussed everything about option B, and so on.

y That would not be effective at all, because the comparisons must stillbe made somewhere.

y (See below for a schematic illustration of these two approaches tocomparisons.)



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Conclusionsy The conclusions section of a feasibility or

recommendation report is in part a summary orrestatement of the conclusions you have alreadyreached in the comparison sections.

y In this section, you restate the individual conclusions,for example, which model had the best price, whichhad the best battery function, and so on.



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Recommendation or Final Opinion

y The final section of feasibility and recommendationreports states the recommendation.

y remember that some readers may skip right to therecommendation section and bypass all your hard work!

y The recommendation section should echo the mostimportant conclusions leading to the recommendationand then state the recommendation emphatically.

y Ordinarily, you may need to recommend several optionsbased on different possibilities.

y In an evaluation report, this final section would state afinal opinion or judgement.y Yes, the free-bus-transportation program was successful, or at

least it was, based on its initial expectations. No, it was amiserable flopit lived up to none of its minimal requirements.



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Recommendation Reports

As you reread and revise your feasibility / recommendationreport, watch out for problems such as the following:

Write a good introduction in which you indicate the

situation and the audience and provide an overview ofthe contents.

State requirements--those factors that influence the

decision or the choice of options. (And remember to state

how important requireme

nts are i

nrelatio

nto each other.)

Indicate how the field of options was narrowed to the

ones being compared.


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Organize the comparison of the options using the point-

by-point approach. Don't use the whole-to-wholeapproach.

At the end of each comparative section, state the best

choice in terms that point of comparison.

Include a summary table, if possible, in which you

summarize all the key data in table form.

Provide technical background, ifnecessary for

un

derstan

din

g the comparative discussion.

Discuss the background on the problem or opportunity--

what brought about the need for the report.


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Include a conclusions section where you restate all the

key conclusions from the comparison section.

State secondary conclusions in the conclusions section--

and based them on requirements that you state in the

requirements section of the report.

State a final conclusion in the conclusions section--one

that states which is the best choice.

Include a recommendation section where you make the

recommendation. Briefly mention the key factors

influencing the recommendation.

--------------------------


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4. Technical Background Reports

y The background report is the hardest to define but the

most commonly written.y This type of technical report provides background on a

topic--for example, solar energy, global warming, CD-ROM technology, a medical problem, or U.S. recyclingactivity .

y

However, the information on the topic is not just foranybody who might be interested in the topic, but forsome individual or group that has specific needs for itand is even willing to pay for that information.

y For exampley imagine an engineering firm bidding on a portion of the work to

build a hemodialysis clinic. The engineers need to know generalknowledge about renal disease and the technologies used to treatit, but they don't want to have to go digging in the library to find it.What they need is a technical background report on the subject.


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6. Business Prospectuses / Plans

yA business prospectus is very much like aproposal, except for at least one big difference.The prospectus seeks to start a new business or

significa

ntly expa

nd a

nexisti

ng busi

ness.

y A proposal, on the other hand, seeks approval todo a specific project.

y For example,y

a business prospectus might seek fu

ndin

g and othersupport to start a software company to create computer

games. A proposal, on the other hand, might bid to do thedevelopment work for some specific computer game.


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7. Technical Specifications

y Specifications are descriptions of products or productrequirements.

y More broadly, they can provide details for the design,manufacture, testing, installation, and use of a product.

y You typically see specifications in the documentation thatcomes in the package with certain kinds of products, forexample, CD players or computers.

y These describe the key technical characteristics of theitem. But specifications are also written as a way of"specifying" the construction and operationalcharacteristics of a thing. They are then used by peoplewho actually construct the thing or go out and attempt to

purchase it.y When you write specifications, accuracy, precision of

detail, and clarity are critical.y Poorly written specifications can cause a range of

problems and lead to lawsuits.


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8. Organizational policies and procedures

y . These are the operating documents for

organizations; they contain rules and regulations on

how the organization and its members are expected to

perform. Policies and procedures are like instructions,

but they go much further.

Look for the example reports onPrint

Managerin my folder

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