MBR Template — the canonical monthly report

Use

Copy this into entities/{entity}/… (or the roadmap's §5) each month. One file per entity per month.

Golden rule

If §6 (Decisions) is empty, the report was theater. A monthly report exists to produce decisions.

A good MBR is short, causal, and decision-forcing

Not a data dump. Three-to-five metrics on the scoreboard, root-cause the reds, force a now-what. The long tail of metrics lives in the glossary and entity §4 — link, don't paste.

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The template (copy from here)

# {Entity} — Monthly Business Review — {Month YYYY}
Owner: {name} · Prepared: {date} · Overall status: 🟢 / 🟡 / 🔴

## 1. Headline (≤ 3 sentences)
The one thing that mattered this month, the overall RAG, and the single decision requested.

## 2. Prior-cycle follow-up   ← review FIRST (this is what closes the loop)
| Decision (last month) | Owner | Due | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| … | … | … | ✅ / ⏳ / ❌ | … |

## 3. Scoreboard — plan vs actual (3–5 executive metrics only)
| KPI | LEAD/LAG | Plan | Actual | Var | Var % | RAG | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| … | … | … | … | … | … | 🟢/🟡/🔴 | ↑/→/↓ |

## 4. Financial summary
Revenue vs budget · gross margin · operating income · cash position.
One-line variance callout for each Amber/Red line.

## 5. Variance analysis — the "so-what"  (Red/Amber only)
For each miss: the root cause (why), tied to the leading indicator that predicted it — not a
restatement of the number.

## 6. Decisions — the "now-what"   ← the payload of the report
| Decision | Rationale | Owner | Due | Changes which target/belief? | Decision-log ID |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| … | … | … | … | … | DEC-YYYY-NNN |

## 7. Forecast & risks
Re-forecast for the rest of the quarter · confidence (H/M/L) · top 3 risks
(link to the entity's §1 Charter → Obstacles).

## 8. Wins & learning
Brief. What worked; what we now believe differently (→ update §0 markers).

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Worked micro-example (illustrative — not a booked month)

SWTR — MBR — {month} · Overall 🔴 Headline: Utilization ran below plan again; root cause is capture, not demand — requesting sign-off to provision the phone line. Scoreboard: Fleet utilization (LAG) plan 75% / actual — 🔴; Leads captured (LEAD) plan grow / actual 4 all-time 🔴; Fleet-ready turnaround (LEAD) 🔴 not-yet-measured. So-what: SWTR has no phone number and sends no email → it can't capture the demand it generates; utilization can't rise until capture exists. Now-what: provision phone + GHL (IT-CRM, by {date}) → DEC-YYYY-NNN; stand up the fleet-ready-turnaround tracker (Ops).

This is how a red number becomes a dated decision that edits direction — the whole point of the loop.