In this lesson you learn to include additional sections in your document when necessary, what information those sections should contain, and how to present them logically to maintain the flow of the document.
As we've seen in Lessons 4 through 7, the framework for a document you might write to request approval to a proposal includes the overview, background, recommendation (or conclusion), and rationale (or key findings). Once you've stated your recommendation and reasoning, it often remains only to describe what needs to happen next assuming the recommendation is accepted. Sometimes, however, there are additional issues that should be addressed but that do not fit easily into any of the previously mentioned sections of your document.
The most common way to include needed information without interrupting the flow of your document is by using exhibits or appendixes. Include an exhibit when you wish to show the reader graphical or visual information that would be impractical or inconvenient to include in the main body of the document.
For example, suppose you want to refer to a map of the United States that is shaded in green, yellow, or red according to whether your product has the leading market share, the second or third highest share, or is not one of the top three brands in that state. Rather than insert the entire map into your document at the point you want to write about it, you might attach it as Exhibit 1, and reference it as follows: "We have the leading market share throughout most of the South and Southwest, but are trailing in the Northeast. See Exhibit 1 for details."
Appendixes are similar to exhibits, but generally include written data or charts of numbers, rather than visual or graphical data. For example, if you were writing a memo on how the company should respond to consumer complaints, you might attach the list of recent complaints as an Appendix and quote from it in your document: "Customers are dissatisfied with the quality of our instruction manual. One typical comment is 'I've tried several times to make your product work by following the manual you provided, but the instructions are hopelessly muddled and confusing.' The complete list of complaints in the past three months is included as Appendix 1."
Appendixes should also be used for charts of numbers that are too large to include in the main body of the document. For example, suppose you're writing a memo summarizing sales results for each of your company's products over the past 12 months. You have a chart with 12 columns (one for each month) and 25 rows (one for each of your company's 25 products) in which each number shows the quantity of that particular product that was sold in the relevant month. While the entire chart contains information that is valuable to your reader, in your document, you only wish to discuss two specific products' sales over the 12-month period. In that case, you could include in the main document just the two rows for the products you plan to discuss, and reference the fact that the entire chart is included as an appendix.
Beyond the use of exhibits and appendixes, there are occasions when you have information to impart that is awkward to include in one of the sections of a standard document.
For example …
When the plan you're recommending is complex or requires a significant amount of explanation to understand completely, you might want to add a section that describes how the plan works.
When the plan you're recommending carries significant risk or possible repercussions that are hard to quantify and address briefly, you might want to add a Risks section.
When you've considered other plans designed to accomplish a similar objective, and need to provide some explanation of why the other plans are not as appropriate as the one you're recommending, you might add a section describing other considerations.
In cases where you need to address one or more of these issues but can't do so in a sentence or two in either the recommendation or the rationale, it is appropriate to add a section specifically to address these concerns. We'll examine each type of additional section previously described separately.
If the plan you're recommending is complex or requires a significant amount of explanation to understand completely, you may wish to include a How the Plan Works section. Since a detailed explanation of the plan could disrupt the flow of the recommendation and the corresponding rationale points, you should include this section after the rationale.
In Lesson 6, "Making Your Recommendation or Conclusions," we discussed a proposal to nationally expand a marketing plan that had been successfully tested in a small part of the United States. The Recommendation section read as follows:
Recommendation: This seeks management agreement to national Brand X marketing plans. Specifically, we would expand the identical plans on the identical timing as in test market. The same marketing plans and timing are warranted given the significantly higher than objective business results and consumer adoption.
Clearly, in this example, the details of the marketing plan will be an important part of the decision-making process, and should be included in the document. However, the plan specifics don't have an impact on the rationale for the recommendation, as the rationale focuses on share and shipment results and other relevant information about how the plan was performing in the test market. In this case, the specifics of the plan aren't the issue—the plan as a whole is working, and that's the basis on which the recommendation to expand is made. Therefore, your memo will flow more smoothly if you wait until after your rationale to provide the plan details.
Caution
Even when including a section to describe how the plan works, you should still try to make the plan description as clear and succinct as possible. If the plan is too confusing, your reader may not fully understand it and be less ready to accept it.
Tip
If the plan you're recommending has more than four or five main elements, or your description of the plan requires more than two or three paragraphs, consider summarizing the plan in the Recommendation section and adding a How the Plan Works section to provide the details.
Note
A storyboard is a collection of sketches similar to panels in a cartoon strip, used by advertising agencies to present the idea of a television commercial to their client prior to actually filming the commercial.
As you can see from this segment of a section describing how the plan works, each plan element should contain …
Virtually all recommendations carry some risk—the most obvious being the cost of the plan to the company if it doesn't meet expectations. Occasionally, however, you may recommend a plan that carries greater risks than usual, or one whose risks aren't immediately obvious. In such cases, you should bring those issues to light and indicate, where possible, how your plan will address the risks in order to mitigate them.
Suppose you are the product development manager for a coffee company, and you've created a process called "fast-roasting." Fast-roasting has several advantages compared to the method your company (and your competition) currently employs. Fast-roasting expands the coffee beans in such a way that you can use 20 percent fewer beans to make an equally good-tasting cup of coffee. This means you can produce a product that tastes the same, comes in the same size container, and is measured and used in the same way as your current product, with a raw materials cost reduction of 20 percent.
You're recommending that your company implement the fast-roasting procedure for all its coffee brands. However, you recognize that this plan carries unusual risk. Because fast-roasting expands the beans, your containers will contain fewer coffee beans and consequently weigh less. If your competition or an outside party, such as a consumer advocate, publicizes that your container, although it is the same size as your competitors', contains less coffee (by weight), consumers may react negatively. You should address this in a risks section, immediately following the rationale.
As in the preceding example, in the case of significant or unusual risk you should …
Clearly state what the risk is.
Describe efforts you've made to quantify the risk.
Describe what steps you've taken to mitigate the impact if the risk actually occurs.
Provide the worst-case scenario, if possible, and how that compares to the best case or most likely one.
Occasionally, you will recommend one plan among several. While the bulk of your memo will address the important elements of the recommended plan and the reasons it is an appropriate choice, you may wish to include a section on why this particular plan was chosen over the alternatives.
Suppose you're the new vice president of sales for a company with four major automotive accessory product lines and four key distribution channels—hardware stores, auto parts stores, auto repair shops, and discount retailers (such as Wal-Mart and Target). Until now, each sales representative had a territory, and could choose whether or not to call on any type of distributor within his area, and choose which of the product lines to sell. You're recommending a major restructuring of the sales force along distribution channel lines. This restructuring means that each sales rep will be responsible for all four product lines, but will call on only one type of distributor within his territory.
In your Rationale section, you've stated that this reorganization will improve coverage of important distribution outlets, make training new sales reps easier and more effective, and enable sales management to more effectively monitor and manage their sales reps' performance.
You considered reorganizing the sales force along product lines, with each sales rep carrying only one product line and calling on all types of distributors in his territory, but chose not to recommend that option. You might then write an Other Considerations section like the one that follows.
Tip
If you're recommending a different course of action than the one your management is expecting, you may want to include an Other Considerations section that mentions the other plan and the reasons you chose the one you did over the one they had expected. Otherwise, your management will probably not accept your plan until they understand why the other plan was rejected.
Note that in the Other Considerations section, you should include …
A brief description of the alternative considered.
Advantages the alternative may have to the recommended plan.
The key reasons the recommended plan was chosen over the alternative.
Each of these additions to the "standard" structure—exhibits or appendixes, or sections that describe how the plan works, risks associated with the plan, or other considerations—can be used to include important information in your document without interrupting its flow. As you write your memo, begin with the basic structure, but keep these possibilities in mind if you find that the organization of your memo is becoming cumbersome or hard to follow.
If you have information that needs to be included in your document, but it doesn't fit easily into the background, recommendation, or rationale, you may include an additional section after the rationale.
You may also add a section after the rationale to present information that would disrupt the logical flow of your document if you included it elsewhere.
Standard kinds of additional sections are How the Plan Works, in the case of complicated plans; Risks, in cases of significant or unusual risks inherent in the plan; and Other Considerations, when you've considered but rejected alternatives to the plan you're proposing.