Report authors are encouraged to develop reports in a non-Production environment (Cognos Analytics QA or Cognos Analytics Development) for the following reasons.

• Report development can have unexpected results that could impact the Production environment. 
• It segregates reports that are under development from those that have been fully tested and ready for Production use.

Export/Import a Report Specification

Follow the steps in this article from IBM to easily export a report specification in one environment and import it into another.