What happens when you write a report that isn’t really a report at all.

We’re not sure if you’ve read The Report yet — we’ve developed a mild allergic reaction to promoting it. But that’s more of a personality trait on our part than a strategic need.

We took one hell of a gamble.

We’ve always said: let’s do something different. Let’s challenge the sector. But when you say that out loud, it often ends up sounding either cheesy or really aggressive. And that’s not us.

We’re not angry at the sector. We’re just… a bit tired.

Tired of the loop. Tired of reports that echo each other. Tired of insight being gathered, typed up, formatted beautifully — and quietly forgotten.

But what if all that frustration — the kind that creeps in when you realise you’ve sat through the same consultation ten different ways — could be channelled into something that felt more us?

What if we used the one thing ProjectChange does better than anyone else?

We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

So we thought: what if we didn’t take the sector too seriously either?

What if we just… said the thing?

Not performatively. Not like a mic drop.

Just plainly. Quietly. In a report that looks like every other report, but reads like the conversation you’ve had ten times after the meeting.

How it actually happened

The whole thing came together in 48 hours, seven days before launch.

Not out of panic — we were working on something else entirely — but because it suddenly clicked. Once we stopped trying to write what a report should sound like, the words just fell out. Fast.

We wrote most of it in shared docs, bouncing one-liners and frameworks that shouldn’t exist but somehow made perfect sense. The fake methodology, the IKEA metaphor, the RAG table rating whether anything will change — it all came naturally once we leaned into the joke.

But it wasn’t cynical. And it wasn’t careless. We laughed the whole way through. And then we shared it around and people said,

“Wait… this is actually brilliant.” And that’s when we realised: it works because it’s honest. It’s funny because it’s true.

And it landed because we stopped trying to explain ourselves.

And then it landed

The response has blown us away.

We’ve had DMs from people saying they felt seen, tagged in threads full of energy, and even a few quiet messages from people who’ve never messaged us before. Not because they suddenly agreed with us, but because they appreciated someone saying the thing they’ve been thinking for a while.

And maybe that’s the real point.

This isn’t The Report That Will Change Everything.

It’s just a report. One that lets us ask: What if we stopped pretending we need more evidence?

So… what now?

We don’t know. But we’re open to ideas.

We’ll keep talking, keep laughing, and keep working with people who want to try something different — not louder, not shinier, just different. We’ll keep listening. Properly. We’ll keep backing care experienced people to use their voice in whatever way works for them. And we’ll keep writing things that sound like us.

If you’ve not read it yet, you can find it on the website. It’s short. It’s weird. It might make you laugh. But it also might make you feel like, yeah… fair enough.

And honestly? That’s all we were ever aiming for.

And to quote our lord and saviour, Kenny Rogers:

“You got to know when to hold, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

We held this one for just long enough. We showed it when it felt right. And now we’re walking away — slowly, backwards, waving.

Thanks for reading. Let us know what you think. Or don’t. We’ve already made a report about it.