Prompts to write a report

Blank page, deadline, and everything you know is in your head in the wrong order.

I need to write a [REPORT TYPE, E.G. QUARTERLY STATUS / PROJECT POST-MORTEM / MARKET ASSESSMENT] for [AUDIENCE]. Decision or purpose it serves: [WHAT READERS DO WITH IT].

Interview me: ask questions one at a time (max 8 total) to extract what the report needs — findings, evidence, constraints, recommendation. Follow up when my answer is vague; skip questions my earlier answers already covered.
Then deliver: a full outline with section headings, one line per section on what it must contain, which of MY statements maps where, and where I still owe evidence — marked [GAP].

Outline stands. Now each section, drafted tight from your bullet points — with nothing invented in the gaps.

Draft the section "[SECTION HEADING]" of my [REPORT TYPE]. Audience: [WHO]. Length: max [N] words. Register: [E.G. SOBER, DIRECT, NO CONSULTING-SPEAK].

My facts and bullets for this section:
[PASTE BULLETS, NUMBERS, QUOTES]

Rules: use only my material — where a connective claim is needed that I didn't supply, write [CLAIM NEEDED: …] instead of inventing it; every number keeps its comparison base; no "it is important to note", no paragraph-long throat-clearing; end the section with its single takeaway sentence in bold.

The one page most readers will ever read — written last, read first.

Write the executive summary of my finished report (pasted below). Audience: [SENIOR READERS + THEIR DECISION]. Hard limit: [200] words.

Structure: 1) the answer/recommendation in the first two sentences — not the topic, the ANSWER; 2) the three findings that carry it, each with its key number; 3) what it costs / what it needs; 4) the decision requested, with deadline.
Rules: no sentence that merely announces content ("this report examines…"); nothing in the summary that isn't in the report; a reader who stops here must know what to decide and why.

Report:
[PASTE FULL DRAFT]

Done, you think. Twenty minutes of adversarial reading now beats the reply-all question you didn't see coming.

Read my report as its most skeptical recipient: [WHO THAT IS, THEIR STAKE]. No praise.

Deliver: 1) the 3 questions they will ask that the report doesn't answer; 2) the weakest claim — quote it — and what evidence would fix it; 3) internal contradictions or numbers that don't reconcile (check the summary against the body!); 4) what the report avoids saying, and whether that avoidance is visible; 5) the strongest counter-position to my recommendation, argued in 3 sentences — so I can address it before they raise it.

Report:
[PASTE]