Do board report templates work? Our experts answer [video]

Gary Woodward (00:00)
One of the things we end up talking about on our board report writing courses is templates, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Kathy Gemmell (00:07)
Board report templates can be very useful. They can be very useful for the board because they know where to find the information.

They’re busy, they have many, many papers to get through. They want to be aware of where the key bits of information are so that they can do an initial quick read and then go back and focus on particular points.

David Cameron (00:25)
Quite a natural reaction for a board that receives stuff that they find hard to understand is to say, look, we need to standardise this. Let’s have a template for our reports and we’ll get everything in the same place in each

Kathy Gemmell (00:38)
It provides consistency from the board’s point of view. They know where to find the risks page. They know where the cost benefit analysis is.

Gary Woodward (00:47)
The thing about templates, why did they arise? Because maybe the writers were not thinking about what the board members care about. So they can be very helpful because it can list the things that really you should think about when you’re writing about this topic, whether it’s about risk, whether it’s about finances, whether it’s about the impact.

And so that can be really helpful to guide you.

Kathy Gemmell (01:07)
As the writer, you have some reassurance of what it is you need to cover.

The difficulty with templates is that they are templates and one size doesn’t necessarily fit all.

Gary Woodward (01:18)
When they don’t work well is that the writer feels – they can feel it’s like a straitjacket. In other words, they can’t fit in what they need to write into the template.

David Cameron (01:26)
The issue with it is what you’ll get is everything brought down to a level rather than increased to a level. Writers will see a heading and be thinking, I’m not sure that’s relevant, but they want something about that. And they might find themselves writing three or four paragraphs explaining that this isn’t relevant. And that will be very frustrating to read.

Gary Woodward (01:46)
The other thing that can happen writers sometimes complain about is if a template is poorly constructed, they feel that they’re repeating themselves, writing the same thing at different parts of the template.

Kathy Gemmell (01:57)
I think there can be huge pressure to find something to put in that box on the template.

What’s the difference between context and background? Not sure, I’ll put the same information in.

Gary Woodward (02:08)
What I would encourage you to do if you’re responsible for creating a template is to think about, what are the core things really that we need covered? And then give a few options depending on the kind of paper someone’s writing.

Just have that balance of firm-ish guidelines, but a bit of flexibility.

Kathy Gemmell (02:24)
So allow a little bit of flexibility within the executive summary.

That’s your chance as a writer really to put your key points across clearly,

before going on to all the sections in the template that need to be there, whether that’s for the regulator, whether that’s for the particular needs of the board.

But then have clear sections which you can delete if not applicable.

Gary Woodward (02:48)
Now, one other thing, as a writer, it’s really tempting just to open your computer open the template, start tapping in. But if you can do your thinking apart from the template.

Kathy Gemmell (02:58)
There is a danger with templates that it removes the need for the writer to think critically about why they’re putting information in. They can become a bit of a box-filling exercise.

Gary Woodward (03:10)
So do some sort of thinking about the messages, get the story clear in your mind and then do your best job with what you’ve got assembled and say, okay, If I’ve got to use the template, where does it best go? Otherwise what can happen is the template can direct your thinking and it’s possible you could leave some crucial things out.

David Cameron (03:26)
I do really think the way forward to get good quality reports is to be very clear about what good looks like and absolutely show your organisation your company, what good is. ‘This is a good board report about this sort of topic.’

It’s good because the ask is up top.

The exec summary is to the point and covers off all the main points and the backup information in the main body of report is what we need.

Gary Woodward (03:53)
If you as an organisation make an effort to give good feedback to the writer, do some coaching, some training, then the more experienced they become, the more confident they become, the less they have to, you could say, use the template as a crutch.

But if that’s not going on, then what can happen is that you’ve got an organisational template and people are just filling it in almost mindlessly, and you’re not getting the high quality information you need in your board reports.

David Cameron (04:20)
If you really want good quality reports from the expert to the board, that’s the process you need to think about adopting. Show people what good looks like and then mentor and support them through the process of creating it.