One thing I’ve seen repeatedly: teams generate a huge amount of reporting—but very little of it actually drives decisions.
At one point, I was part of a team producing over 100 performance reports daily.
The intent was good: visibility, transparency, data-driven decision-making.
But over time, a few things became clear:
- not all reports were being reviewed
- information was being filtered through layers before reaching decision-makers
- the focus shifted from “what decisions need to be made?” to “what reporting needs to be produced?”
At that point, reporting becomes output—not impact.
And it creates a different kind of inefficiency:
- teams spend time producing information that isn’t fully used
- insights get diluted as they move through layers
- decisions are delayed, even though “data is available”
- The goal of reporting isn’t volume—it’s clarity.
Good reporting should answer a specific question, support a specific decision, or highlight a specific risk.
If it doesn’t, it’s worth asking:
- What decision is this enabling?
- Who is responsible for acting on it?
- Is this the simplest way to surface that information?
More data doesn’t create better decisions.
Better structure and ownership do.