Written Reports

• At the start of the international project, identify the types of documents that will be produced.

• For each type, make sure that you have an outline for the document.

• Try to put examples of these documents from previous projects on the network. Include good and bad examples. Expunge the names of people and organizations. This will give the team members models of what is expected. We do this in our teaching. Each quarter we often put past projects on the Web or network for students to review. Since each project is different, they cannot just reuse what has been done before.

• Discuss guidelines and expectations for each document.

• Discuss how documents will be reviewed.

From experience there are some additional guidelines for preparing the documents. Do not send team members away to work on a document. They might come back weeks later with something unacceptable. That is too risky and there may be insufficient time to redo the document. Have the team members produce an outline for you in a short time. Then they can submit more detailed outlines later. The document grows and there will be no unpleasant surprises. This method is called the method of successive refinement. It has been employed in both teaching and projects for over two decades—always with good results.