5-15 Reports

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Stay in touch with your team, wherever you are, using 5-15 Reports.

Does your heart sink when yet another fat business report drops into your inbox? And does the thought of writing a similarly stuffy and complex document sap your spirit?

Business reports   can go on for page after boring page, so they may well end up lying unopened on your desk. And, by the time you do read them, they may be out of date.

So much of today's fast-paced business environment relies on speed and conciseness: this is the age of Twitter® and instant communication. If you are "up to your neck" in emails and messages, the last thing you want to do is read a long report. And you may have even less time or desire to write one.

What if you could shorten your progress reports to a simple list of items on a single sheet of paper? What if you could write them in only 15 minutes, and it took your "customer" just five minutes to read them? You could keep information flowing around your organization easily, and help everyone to feel less weighed down with work.

In this article, you'll find out how to do that with the 5-15 Report. It's a bite-sized document that you and your people can use to summarize your team's progress, highlight potential obstacles, set goals, and celebrate success.

What Is a 5-15 Report?

Yvon Chouinard, founder and CEO of outdoor equipment company Patagonia®, devised the 5-15 Report in the 1980s. He spent much of the year out of the office, dreaming up new clothing designs and testing out his current lines, and he created the report-writing approach so that he could stay in touch with the business while he was "out and about."...