Advisory Report

Advisory Report

An advisory report helps a client, team or other stakeholder decide what to do. You define the problem, compare possible solutions and recommend an option using evidence. This method applies across ICT profiles: the subject can be an engine, an interface, a technical architecture or a business process.

A useful report makes your reasoning traceable. Readers should understand what you recommend, why it fits their needs and what consequences or uncertainties they should consider.

Starting Points

• Start from a specific decision and identify who will make it. Collect relevant research findings, user observations, measurements and constraints.
• Use the Taalwinkel advisory report guide for guidance on structure and writing (in Dutch).
• Draft the structure below, then ask someone from your target audience to explain your recommendation back to you.

Suggested structure

1. Summary: the decision, recommendation and main reasons.
2. Context and question: the problem, stakeholders, goals, scope and constraints.
3. Approach and findings: how you investigated the question, what you found and the limitations of the evidence.
4. Alternatives: compare realistic options against the same criteria. Explain the importance of each criterion and support comparisons with evidence.
5. Recommendation and consequences: justify your choice, discuss risks and relevant societal or ethical effects, and identify next steps or further validation.
6. References and supporting material: cite sources and make detailed results traceable without overloading the main text.

For example, when choosing between two implementations, compare both against the required functionality, performance, accessibility and maintenance effort. Separate measured results from estimates, and explain how uncertainty could change your recommendation.

Key Points

• Answer the original question and distinguish findings, assumptions and your interpretation.
• Substantiate alternatives as well as the preferred option; avoid choosing criteria merely to justify a decision you already made.
• Make trade-offs explicit. If you use scores or weights, explain their basis and avoid suggesting more precision than the evidence supports.
• Address consequences for the people affected, such as accessibility barriers or the need to collect personal data.
• Adapt language and detail to your reader. Explain necessary technical terms and use clear headings or comparison tables.
• Check that the reader can act on the advice and can find the evidence behind important claims.