7 ms·

This is now one of the things I screen for at any new job. At my current company, we've banned PowerPoint for any internal communication, and use text for just

This is now one of the things I screen for at any new job. At my current company, we've banned PowerPoint for any internal communication, and use text for just about everything.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I wish my company did that. Even if you write a document usually they ask for Powerpoint so after a while everything regresses to bullet points on slides.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  A lot of companies I have worked at use PowerPoints as the ONLY means of documentation. Presenters have slides that cram so much information that they become unstructured glob of textual-visual noise with jpegs, flow charts, long paragraphs and drawing snippets, etc. People have forgotten to write structured documents that logically layout your thoughts.
- nlawalker 8y ago
  So, so many people hate reading and writing. They abhor it. Black and white text on a page looks like history class homework. You could strap them to a chair and hold their eyes open and they wouldn't be able to make it through two double-spaced pages. In my experience, one of the most common agendas for a meeting is "here is a document that the author is going to read to you."
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I have told people "we don't need a meeting where you read the slides to me. Just send the doc and I will read it" :-). Didn't go over too well....
    - marktangotango 8y ago
      Reminds me of the time it was my turn to lead the weekly staff meeting. Why? Cause our manger was lazy I guess. I handed out copies of Brooks No Silver Bullet essay. Did not go over well at all.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    You shouldn't just dump a document with only black text. Don't be afraid to use colors and illustrations (which are nearly always enhanced by colors).
- asark 8y ago
  At least one major (like, major) management consulting firm turns basically all their communication into a PowerPoint, sooner or later (usually sooner). I gather they've found they can't consistently get C-level folks to pay attention to any other format, but it also ends up being their own internal format-of-record for almost everything. It's bananas.
  - Terretta 8y ago
    More than one. Basically any global consultancy targeting c-suite ‘strategy’ advisement.
- dingaling 8y ago
  Bullet points aren't always bad. Done properly they convey the essence of the message without the baggage of conversational language. If you can understand a Powerpoint just from the graphics + bullets then it's done correctly. If it needs supplementary notes then send it back for rework.
loganfrederick 8y ago
I completely agree. I've been at jobs where I would be asked to explain a product or initiative and would go with documentation, only to be told that I "write too much" and to condense into slides. This was almost always due to managerial laziness in vetting decisions on the basis of "saving time", instead of doing the hard work of understanding a problem or opportunity as thoroughly as possible. Then, when problems arise that were highlighted or predicted in the documentation, you can't just tell people "I told you so". But getting people to understand the flimsiness of slide presentations compared to documentation can be a slog.
- seattle_spring 8y ago
  There has to be a balance though. The last place I worked some guy would write literally 30-40 pages explaining a service he was going to write. No one was going to read that, nor should they. It could have been explained in 1-2 pages, easy.
  - loganfrederick 8y ago
    Agreed, the level of "paperwork" varies depending on what you're actually trying to get done. Proposing a new product? 2-3 pages like the Amazon Press Release technique should probably be the max. Product and engineering manager scoping the implementation? Could total 10 pages, but split into 20 different tickets that go across 5 devs and a designer. Context definitely matters.
  - btilly 8y ago
    Hence the importance of the other half of Amazon's policy. Not just "written form", but "written and of easily digestible length X". You want there to be nowhere for bad reasoning to hide. Neither in the disconnection that comes naturally with slide shows, or in a forest of spurious verbiage that long writing encourages. As Dijkstra famously commented about writing, "You cannot sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. Nor will 10 blunt axes suffice."
  - sib 8y ago
    Yes, definitely. I wrote (or contributed significantly to) dozens of docs for Jeff Bezos and his senior team. It was important to understand whether you were writing a 2-pager or a 6-pager (depended on a number of factors, mostly relating to complexity of the issues involved, the size of risks, and the variances in expected outcomes.) Two examples: (1) An acquisition memo justifying a functional/technical area (and specific target company) that we wanted to be able to move into due diligence with. (2) A recommendation related to whether "Alexa" (the service) and "Echo" (the device) should have the same or different names. In case you're wondering, the former was a 2-page and the latter, a 6-pager. In each case, the recommendation that we presented was accepted, the second after much more vigorous debate than the first. Jeff was initially strongly opposed to having two different names. No one would read a 40-page document, but there were a few times when we ended up with 6-pagers that contained 20+ pages of detailed appendices. I also believe that the culture of the document is a key success factor for Amazon (but that it can't just be cargo-culted into other organizations without a lot of buy-in).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
icelancer 8y ago
We use Powerpoint internally for short discussions especially when media is relevant (we do a lot with video, so it's necessary to have some way to communicate that), but we are heavily-biased towards text as well. Printed, if at all possible.

This is now one of the things I screen for at any new job. At my current company, we've banned PowerPoint for any internal communication, and use text for just about everything.

maxxxxx 8y ago

I wish my company did that. Even if you write a document usually they ask for Powerpoint so after a while everything regresses to bullet points on slides.

fermienrico 8y ago
A lot of companies I have worked at use PowerPoints as the ONLY means of documentation. Presenters have slides that cram so much information that they become unstructured glob of textual-visual noise with jpegs, flow charts, long paragraphs and drawing snippets, etc. People have forgotten to write structured documents that logically layout your thoughts.
nlawalker 8y ago
So, so many people hate reading and writing. They abhor it. Black and white text on a page looks like history class homework. You could strap them to a chair and hold their eyes open and they wouldn't be able to make it through two double-spaced pages. In my experience, one of the most common agendas for a meeting is "here is a document that the author is going to read to you."
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I have told people "we don't need a meeting where you read the slides to me. Just send the doc and I will read it" :-). Didn't go over too well....
  - marktangotango 8y ago
    Reminds me of the time it was my turn to lead the weekly staff meeting. Why? Cause our manger was lazy I guess. I handed out copies of Brooks No Silver Bullet essay. Did not go over well at all.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  You shouldn't just dump a document with only black text. Don't be afraid to use colors and illustrations (which are nearly always enhanced by colors).
asark 8y ago
At least one major (like, major) management consulting firm turns basically all their communication into a PowerPoint, sooner or later (usually sooner). I gather they've found they can't consistently get C-level folks to pay attention to any other format, but it also ends up being their own internal format-of-record for almost everything. It's bananas.
- Terretta 8y ago
  More than one. Basically any global consultancy targeting c-suite ‘strategy’ advisement.
dingaling 8y ago
Bullet points aren't always bad. Done properly they convey the essence of the message without the baggage of conversational language. If you can understand a Powerpoint just from the graphics + bullets then it's done correctly. If it needs supplementary notes then send it back for rework.

loganfrederick 8y ago

I completely agree. I've been at jobs where I would be asked to explain a product or initiative and would go with documentation, only to be told that I "write too much" and to condense into slides. This was almost always due to managerial laziness in vetting decisions on the basis of "saving time", instead of doing the hard work of understanding a problem or opportunity as thoroughly as possible. Then, when problems arise that were highlighted or predicted in the documentation, you can't just tell people "I told you so". But getting people to understand the flimsiness of slide presentations compared to documentation can be a slog.

seattle_spring 8y ago
There has to be a balance though. The last place I worked some guy would write literally 30-40 pages explaining a service he was going to write. No one was going to read that, nor should they. It could have been explained in 1-2 pages, easy.
- loganfrederick 8y ago
  Agreed, the level of "paperwork" varies depending on what you're actually trying to get done. Proposing a new product? 2-3 pages like the Amazon Press Release technique should probably be the max. Product and engineering manager scoping the implementation? Could total 10 pages, but split into 20 different tickets that go across 5 devs and a designer. Context definitely matters.
- btilly 8y ago
  Hence the importance of the other half of Amazon's policy. Not just "written form", but "written and of easily digestible length X". You want there to be nowhere for bad reasoning to hide. Neither in the disconnection that comes naturally with slide shows, or in a forest of spurious verbiage that long writing encourages. As Dijkstra famously commented about writing, "You cannot sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. Nor will 10 blunt axes suffice."
- sib 8y ago
  Yes, definitely. I wrote (or contributed significantly to) dozens of docs for Jeff Bezos and his senior team. It was important to understand whether you were writing a 2-pager or a 6-pager (depended on a number of factors, mostly relating to complexity of the issues involved, the size of risks, and the variances in expected outcomes.) Two examples: (1) An acquisition memo justifying a functional/technical area (and specific target company) that we wanted to be able to move into due diligence with. (2) A recommendation related to whether "Alexa" (the service) and "Echo" (the device) should have the same or different names. In case you're wondering, the former was a 2-page and the latter, a 6-pager. In each case, the recommendation that we presented was accepted, the second after much more vigorous debate than the first. Jeff was initially strongly opposed to having two different names. No one would read a 40-page document, but there were a few times when we ended up with 6-pagers that contained 20+ pages of detailed appendices. I also believe that the culture of the document is a key success factor for Amazon (but that it can't just be cargo-culted into other organizations without a lot of buy-in).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

icelancer 8y ago

We use Powerpoint internally for short discussions especially when media is relevant (we do a lot with video, so it's necessary to have some way to communicate that), but we are heavily-biased towards text as well. Printed, if at all possible.