Decision Report Writing Structure

Cover Page

Title of the Report:

Decision Report on ….
Name and Designation of the receiver
Name and Designation of the sender

Executive Summary: 90-110 words

The executive summary (ES) is not a statement merely to indicate what you will find in
the report but a miniature report. It contains all the parts of a report mentioned below.
The ES should not exceed ten per cent of the full report. One paragraph only.

1. Situation Analysis
2. The Problem
3. The Options
4. Criteria for Evaluation
5. The Recommendation

The Report
Situation Analysis: 350-400 words
This is possibly the most important part of your report because the rest of the report is
built on it. It shows you reading or analysis of the situation. It is neither a description of
the situation nor a summary of the case facts. This is where you zero in on the facts that
you consider relevant for decision making and indicate the relationships that you
perceive between those facts. If you analyze the situation well, you will have no difficulty
defining the decision problem or the managerial challenge faced by the protagonist in
the case.

The Problem
Here you articulate briefly and precisely the problem. A simple statement or a question.
The Options: minimum 3
Once you define the problem, the next step is to generate different ways of solving it. These
are the options available to the decision-maker. The ideal options are mutually exclusive,
that is, if you opt for A, you cannot also opt for B or C.
Criteria for Evaluation: minimum 4 maximum 5

Criteria are the norms that an option should pass for it to be adopted as the solution
Criteria are not universal; they stem from the analysis of a given situation.
Identifying the best opinion is relatively simple if there is just one criterion. If there are
multiple criteria. You should prioritize them: in other words, you should indicate which
criterion is the most important and which criteria are less important. If an opinion falls
the most important criterion, it cannot be adopted even if it meets all the other criteria.
The prioritization of criteria stems from the analysis of the situation. You may need to justify
your prioritization unless it is very obvious
Evaluation of Options: 300-350 words
Once you have prioritized the criteria, you apply them to ALL, the options identified. It is
not enough to apply them to one of the most promising options.

The Recommendation
It is the option that has passed all the criteria you have identified. If none of the options
clear all the criteria, the option that meets most of the criteria, especially the most
important one(s), is the one that you recommend to the decision-maker.