Content planning. Useful for launching a project with a report's authors and managers, these sessions identify the topic, audience, purpose, and main messages. The message structure informs the outline, which is then used to build a paragraph-by-paragraph plan of an entire report.

Draft reviews. With the report taped on a (big) wall and with paragraph plans in hand, our report planners and senior editors work with authors to identify the main and supporting messages, see how the headings can reinforce those messages, determine sections to cut or shrink, and come up with an agreed plan for the structural and substantive edits.