Quarterly Executive Reports

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Quarterly Executive Reports

tdunbar

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Points: 114
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May 4, 2009 at 10:21 am

#208961

I have a request from my manager to produce quarterly reports. There was not a lot of specific when I asked about expectations or purpose of the report.
I am looking for examples of the types of information upper-management would find useful.

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Alex Prusakov Ten Centuries Points: 1154 More actions · Answer 1

Number of accidents,

10 worst queries;

Number of failed jobs;

Max CPU utilization,

….

Alex Prusakov

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004339 More actions · Answer 2

tdunbar (5/4/2009)
I have a request from my manager to produce quarterly reports. There was not a lot of specific when I asked about expectations or purpose of the report.
I am looking for examples of the types of information upper-management would find useful.

I guess you'd have to narrow it down for us a bit... quarterly reports for what? Average number of daily deadlocks? Server or database growth? Number of furlongs per fortnight that molasses moves on a 1% slope? Server related, finance related, product related? What? 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

tdunbar SSC Enthusiast Points: 114 More actions · Answer 3

I was (correctly) apprehensive about posting such an open-ended question. Molasses flow is hilarious; I deserved that one.

My post is indicative of how desperate I am to learn what others provide their management.

I suspect I am thinking too hard about this; maybe what I need to do is communicate what projects we completed and maybe some information on database growth. Follow the keep-it-simple-stupid principal.

Thanks,

Travis

Bob Griffin SSCertifiable Points: 5982 More actions · Answer 4

Good question....if you have a helpdesk system, this is a great place to start. Open tickets, closed tickets in a certain time period, average days to close a ticket....

I also report on report server utilization giving an account of reports ran per day and per month by the business community.

Anything that displays a measure of the value of your employment to the company is excellent. Keep it simple though.

Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 5

tdunbar (5/5/2009)
My post is indicative of how desperate I am to learn what others provide their management.

Maybe you should ask your manager what information he needs to see. It seems a bit silly to ask someone for a report without giving any indications of what should be in it.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Bob Griffin SSCertifiable Points: 5982 More actions · Answer 6

Sounds like the manager doesn't know what he/she wants. I would use this as an opportunity to control your own destiny. You decide what numbers to measure yourself with. This also makes you the expert in interpreting these numbers. Puts you in a good place.

tdunbar SSC Enthusiast Points: 114 More actions · Answer 7

Bob Griffin (5/5/2009)
Sounds like the manager doesn't know what he/she wants. I would use this as an opportunity to control your own destiny. You decide what numbers to measure yourself with. This also makes you the expert in interpreting these numbers. Puts you in a good place.

This is great advice and thanks to everyone who took time from your day to respond. It gave me the confidence to move forward. My quarterly reports were well received. We are a nonprofit specialty medical society - membership driven so I keep that in the front of my mind. I focused my report on database growth, member record growth, data quality projects, and data loading projects. I kept the report simple.

Again thanks for the support.

Travis

Bob Griffin SSCertifiable Points: 5982 More actions · Answer 8

Thank you for the feedback.

I'm sure you've heard the saying "you can't manage what you can't measure." A lot of times in the technical world, your manager doesn't have a clue about the details of what you do. When you give them any measurement at all, do it consistently, and keep it simple they have no choice but to be happy for that information.

No measurement is perfect. All it does is give you a basis to have an intelligent conversation about your work with your manager......

Congrats!