You should be using 5-15 reports if you want to look professional when you send out your business report, but you’re not certain what it should entail? The good news is there is no “correct format” for a business report. The right format depends on your company, your day-to-day work environment, and how much time you have.
Unsure how to determine the best format for your company reports? This is a common concern for our clients, and every time we recommend a 5-15 report.
What are 5-15 reports?
The concept is simple: the report should take no more than 5 minutes to read and no more than 15 minutes to write. Many managers are under the false impression that longer equals better, but the truth is no one wants to read a needlessly long report.
The simple, 5 15 report format allows you and your employees to stay efficient, catch up on the negatives and positives of the week, and bring up any nagging concerns.
Better yet, a weekly 5-15 report allows team members to:
- Communicate successes without feeling awkward
- Capture important lessons
- Demonstrate awareness of next steps
- Alert you to setbacks without asking for support
Who uses Five-Fifteen reports?
Entrepreneur, Paul Hawken, talks about how he used 5 15 reports in his book Growing a Business. His company was growing 50% compounded annually per year and Hawken was finding it difficult to manage information. 5-15 reports helped Hawken gain a better grip on his employees’ day to day without being overbearing or excessive. They also gave employees a voice and a way to connect or work through related business issues.
Responding to similar pressure, Yvon Chouinard, CEO of Patagonia, designed 5-15 reports as an upward and efficient channel of communication. This helped to keep everyone on the same page and set priorities for the following week.
5-15 Report Example:
5-15 reports can help you uncover varying issues or opportunities. While there is no right or wrong way to write a business report, make sure your report aligns with what you’re hoping to relay and uncover by sending one out.
During our executive & management coaching sessions, we help clients uncover what they want to get from sending out these reports. Workload issues? New & lost clients? Employee ideas? We then help our clients determine a report structure that will relay important information and extract updates from their team to increase performance and resolve overall issues.
To get you started, here is the basic structure of a 5-15 report:
Name:
Week Ending: / /
Accomplishments for the week:
- [List completed activities and notable accomplishments. In general, what is working? What is your current state?]
Priorities for next week:
- [List priority tasks for next week. Be specific.]
Challenges/ Roadblocks:
- [Imagine and describe potential challenges that may impede planned tasks.]
Lessons Learned/Opportunities for Improvement:
- [List any areas that may benefit from improvement. What questions are you trying to solve? What is a lesson that you recently learned or relearned?]
That’s it. Short and simple, but effective and efficient. Download the 5-15 report template here and contact our team if you’d like help structuring this efficient report to match your business’ needs.
If you’re the one reading them
Does the report you read say what your team meant?
A 5-15 asks someone to fit a week into fifteen minutes of writing so you can read it in five. Most of what they meant doesn’t survive the trip. And most leaders read it on one belief they never check: if it was written clearly, it was received.
The Crossing, a CO2 paper, looks at that belief, and at why checking it is the whole discipline.
What would you learn if you checked?
The weekly report is one of the few places you can see how your team is actually thinking. It’s also where a team learns to write what it thinks you want to read. From inside the role, the two can look the same.
Our coaches start there: with what you believe your team understands, and how you would know. That first conversation costs nothing and it is not a sales call. Start that conversation here.
