8 minutes
Reporting that leads to decisions Specify the executive progress summary and the public-facing progress report, and make sure each review point ends in a decision rather than a presentation.
What you’ll be able to do Specify what an executive progress summary and a public-facing progress report should contain at agreed review points, and define the decision each review must produce. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What should the sponsor have done? Document a next step for Reporting that leads to decisions: Before your next review point, write the two or three decisions the progress summary should force and send them to the participants with the material. Five verbs and a public account An executive progress summary for disability inclusion should be small enough to read in a few minutes and pointed enough to force a decision. Each item should end in one of five verbs: fund, stop, reassign, escalate or close. If the sponsor leaves a review without having used at least one of them, the review was a presentation. The measurement course in this level goes into the indicators; here the point is what the reporting is for.
Report on processes, products and aggregate outcomes: test records, response times, template status, open barriers and their owners, participation and satisfaction by service. Never report on individual employees or identifiable participants. The purpose is to change systems, and reporting that could be read as scoring people will poison the feedback the system depends on.
Where appropriate, a recurring public-facing progress report tells communities what changed, what is still open and what the agency has committed to next. It is not a marketing document; its credibility comes from naming what is not yet fixed. Communities of disabled people, county and tribal partners and advocates read these closely, and a report that admits open items earns more trust than one that does not.
What the sponsor’s progress summary should show at each review point Each priority barrier, its owner, its status and the decision requested.
Accommodation response time against target, in aggregate.
Share of new content and systems tested before release.
Open recommendations from the steering committee and the response to each.
Budget lines for access and how much of each has been used.
The decisions made at the last review and whether they were carried out.
End every review with a verb What you can change You control whether a review point closes with decisions recorded or with thanks for the presentation.
What to watch for Do not let a red item carry over without a named owner and a change by the next review. Do not let the progress summary drift toward individual performance.
Your next step Write the decision questions for your next review point now, and open the meeting with them.
Fund, stop, reassign, escalate, close Fund
The barrier is understood and the fix is costed; the decision is to pay for it from a named line by a named date.
Stop
A launch, contract or process fails the standard and will not proceed until it passes. The sponsor’s stop power exists for this moment.
Reassign
The barrier has an owner who lacks the authority or capacity to remove it. Move it to someone who has both and say so in the record.
Escalate
The barrier crosses a line the sponsor cannot direct. Take it to the commissioner with a specific request, not a status.
Close
The barrier is gone and someone has tested that it is, or the agency has decided with reasons not to act. Either way, write the reason down.
A review point is a decision point. If the sponsor leaves without having funded, stopped, reassigned, escalated or closed something, the meeting was a presentation, and the barriers on the progress summary will be there next time.
Carry this forward A progress summary exists to prompt decisions: fund, stop, reassign, escalate or close. A review that ends without one was a presentation.
Report on processes, products and aggregate outcomes; never on individual employees or identifiable participants.
A public-facing progress report, where appropriate, is how the agency shows communities what changed and what it still owes them.
One knowledge check; a written list of the decisions your next review will be asked to make.
Before your next review point, write the two or three decisions the progress summary should force and send them to the participants with the material.
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Previous lesson Back to course Carry this into practice Set up the sponsorship, structure, funding and unit-level expectations that let disability inclusion outlast any one leader.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
