Stop Creating Spork Reports

What is a spork report?

I want you to imagine visiting a nice little cafe for a light lunch. You decide to order a simple salad and a cup of soup. When the meal shows up, what utensils will you use to eat your food?

Easy, right? A fork for your salad and a spoon for your soup.

So why not a spork?

For the salad, a regular fork will work better than a spork. And for the soup, a regular spoon will work better than a spork. And for the restaurant, it’s not really any harder to offer two utensils, especially if they have a dishwasher.

This is why, in a world of forks and spoons, sporks are just a novelty.

The problem with solving two problems with one product.

The evaluation reports we create are often designed to satisfy two goals.

The first goal is that we need something to help us defend our work. Being a professional evaluator requires that you systematically document your theory, questions, methods, analyses, and recommendations.

The second goal is that we need to tailor our findings so that we can present them to a variety of audiences. Lots of people don’t care about all the things, they just want something specific that meets their particular needs.

A lot of organizations start by writing a technical report. Then they try to make that technical report meet the needs of their particular audience.

It becomes a catch 22. To defend your work, you need to share all the details. But to present your work to many different audiences, you need to cut out some of that important detail.

So the organization creates a spork report.

It doesn’t defend as well as a technical report. And it doesn’t meet the needs of your audience as well as a presentation report.

Different Goals, Different Products.

Out on the web you will find some pretty common, but misguided, evaluation report design advice. It starts by telling you to create a technical report. Then it tells you to tailor that report for your audience.

Don’t do it. This just leads to frustration, and a revision loop.

It leads to a spork report.

Instead, write your technical report. It should be as long as you need it to be so that you can defend your work. It may have some jargon and feel academic. It may never be read by anyone. AND THAT’S OKAY. First and foremost, it needs to exist.

Then, write your presentation reports. These are the ones you adapt to meet the needs of your audiences. They come in all shapes and sizes. They can refer to the technical report, but should be stand alone presentations designed for specific audience members.