Reports no one reads

Most public finance reports are written for the writer, not the reader. The structure follows convention. The headings mirror last year's version. The executive summary is four pages long. The recommendations are at the end. Nobody planned it that way. It just happened because the incentive was to produce the report, not to change anything with it. One question changes this: before you start writing, ask who will read it, what they need to decide, and what would make them stop at page two. That question reorders everything: length, structure, language, the position of the conclusions. Most public sector finance teams never ask it. The report gets written. It gets published. It gets filed. The cycle repeats next year.