A redesign of the UK government's flagship major-projects report — the headline finding on project delivery confidence existed in the document, just after a cross-tab table that needed its own reading key.
Tracking how a portfolio's delivery-confidence ratings move year over year is exactly the kind of finding a minister or committee wants in one glance. When that finding requires decoding a cross-tab table via a footnote titled "reading key" before it means anything, the report has done the hard analytical work and then hidden the payoff.
| Red | Amber | Green | Exempt | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red | 12 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Amber | 10 | 122 | 13 | 1 |
| Green | 0 | 4 | 8 | 0 |
| Exempt | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
64%
of projects held their rating year over year
The percentages shown here already appear in the report, in a small summary table directly below the cross-tab — this redesign just leads with them instead.
The 64% figure existed in the report already — it just followed the cross-tab instead of leading it.
A proportional breakdown needs no reading key — it shows parts of a whole directly.
The full cross-tab remains in the source report for anyone who wants project-level movement.
This wasn't a case of missing insight — the IPA had already calculated the headline number. The only fix needed was sequencing: put the answer before the working, not after it.
If you've got a programme report, portfolio review, or board pack where the finding is already calculated but buried in a table, I'll take one page and redesign it — no cost, no obligation — the same way as above.