Month-end reporting eats three days and nobody reads it
Almost always, the fix is not a faster tool — it is deleting most of the report. Name who opens each tile on a Monday and what they change because of it; anything that fails that test is furniture. A shorter pack that gets read beats a complete one that does not.
The grandmother version
Every week you copy out the same shopping list by hand, in nice handwriting, and pin it to the fridge. It takes an hour.
Nobody in the house reads it. They open the fridge and look.
The answer isn't a faster pen. It's working out which three things actually need writing down, writing only those, and letting the fridge speak for itself.
Cut before you automate
Automating a report nobody reads buys you a faster way to be ignored, and a maintenance burden forever. Cut first.
For every chart, answer two questions: who opens this on a Monday, and what do they do differently because of it? Tiles that survive get automated. Tiles that don't get deleted, and you say why — that conversation is usually the most valuable part of the project.
Then reconcile, then build
Once the survivors are known, make their totals agree with the system of record. Only then connect and schedule.
Deliver to named people, not to a link nobody visits. A dashboard URL is a place reports go to die; an email at 8am on the first working day is a report that gets read.
Build so it does not rot
Chart coordinates computed, never hand-placed — hand-positioned charts drift the moment the data changes. No animation that can fail and leave a blank panel.
Every number carries its definition and period. Percentages always carry their counts. And write the handover doc: where the data comes from, what breaks first, how to tell, who to call.
The short version
Three days a month is roughly eighteen working days a year. That is worth fixing, but not by making the same unread pack appear faster.
Delete two thirds of it, reconcile what remains, schedule it to people by name. The work drops to minutes and someone actually reads the thing.
The Report Nobody Rebuilds — €3,500, two weeks, handover included so you are not dependent on me.
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