How would you organise an executive briefing?

[merryberry]

Anyone got any views? I am working with new colleagues and we are politely disagreeing if the order should be:

1. Exec recommendations
2. Exec summary
3. Purpose of this paper
4. Rest of paper sections

Or should be:

1. Purpose of this paper
2. Exec recommendations
3. Exec summary
4. Rest of paper sections

Thoughts welcome - yes I know, this is dull if you're not me. Sorry.

umm - if it was me, I'd do it the second way.

Seems a bit odd to discuss the recommendations before you even know the purpose of the paper.....

cheers, we continue to mull it. heading towards second one, many thanks.

The executive summary normally comes first (ie. you could just read this and understand what the whole briefing is about - a summary of the total brief) then I would say Purpose followed by Recommendations. Alternatively you could put the recommendations right at the end, depending on whether you need to have read all the other sections for the recommendations to make sense.