Board packs grow. Each addition is justified when it is made, nothing is ever removed, and within a few years the document is long enough that nobody reads it in full. The result is a board that is thoroughly informed on paper and poorly informed in practice.
Six pages, and what goes on them
A working pack is roughly: one page of summary and decisions required, two pages of financial performance with commentary, one page of operational and leading indicators, one page on risk and compliance changes, and one page tracking prior decisions.
Everything else is an appendix. Appendices are fine — they are reference material for whoever wants them, and they are not the pack.
Variance commentary that means something
“Revenue was below budget by 12%” is data. The commentary has to answer three questions: why, whether it will continue, and what is being done.
Compare against something meaningful. Budget alone is weak, because it may simply have been wrong. Show budget, prior year, and latest forecast, and be clear about which one you regard as the honest expectation now.
The most useful sentence in any pack is the one that revises a forecast early. The least useful is the one that defends a number.
Leading indicators, not only lagging ones
Financial results describe a quarter that has finished. Add the handful of measures that tell you about the next one — pipeline, order book, utilisation, churn, days sales outstanding, headcount against plan. Four or five, consistently reported, are worth more than a dashboard of forty.
One decision per paper
If a board is being asked to decide something, the paper should say what is being asked, what the options were, what the recommendation is and what happens if it is deferred. Papers submitted “for discussion” without a proposal absorb the most time and produce the least.
Then track the decisions. A standing page showing what was agreed, by whom, by when and whether it happened does more for execution than any amount of additional reporting.