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Amazon is obsessive about this stuff. I'm surprised the article never mentions it. There are internal classes offered on writing better documents (and it's a g
by mabbo 7y ago
Amazon is obsessive about this stuff. I'm surprised the article never mentions it.
There are internal classes offered on writing better documents (and it's a great class). There's videos, guides, documents, everything. Writing well at Amazon is key to a successful career here. Got a project idea? Write a very good 1-pager explaining it and you've got a much higher chance of it actually happening. Want to share a design? Write a 6-pager (often 10-15 pages with appendices) explaining what, why and how you're going to build the system.
I've been in meetings that start with 15 minutes of silent reading, then 45 minutes of discussion. No PowerPoint presenting.
It's very weird for newcomers, but I don't know anyone who finds that it isn't better than the alternatives.
- yomly 7y agoIt's a bit fuzzy whether people from CS backgrounds acquire this skill organically, but the style guide / format of the x-pager docs felt very familiar to scientific publishing. The main value of it felt that enshrining factual objective information and basing all discussion around that.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- scarejunba 7y agoInteresting. Is the advice published externally somewhere? The Everything Store does mention the silent reading bit.
- adenverd 7y ago+1 would really love to read any style guides or writing class materials from Amazon, if anyone can share!
- sandGorgon 7y ago+1 on this. Any info on what the writing class covers ?
- yomly 7y agoMy (personal) tl;dr from it was: - Some light style rules about having no qualifiers e.g. words like "really significant" were banned - Keep language super concise and non-flowery. Don't try to sound clever, Keep It Simple, Stupid for language basically - Structure arguments a bit like the Minto pyramid[0] was another one I was told while there - No one cares how much work or effort went into your doc, or how clever it is, only the final artefact of your work/thought should make it into the doc no matter how concisely you can express it [0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyramid-Principle-Logic-Writing-Thinking/dp/0273710516 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pyramid-Principle-Logic-Writing-Thi...
- petra 7y agoAnd even if you can't publish, but can recommend some other material with close-enough content, that would be great.
- valbaca 7y agoI've taken the class within Amazon. Honestly there isn't anything that you couldn't get by simply reading and applying the advice from "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White[1] and "On Writing Well" by Zinsser [2]. The primary philosophy is that if you can't write well, then you haven't thought it through. The act of writing is an act of reasoning. 0. Practice in a strong feedback loop. This applies for anything, not just writing. 1. Ruthlessly reduce your sentences. Repeat until you can't eliminate or combine any more words. 2. Avoid adverbs. Use "dashed" or "sprinted" instead of "ran quickly". Learn more words. 3. Avoid weasel words like "should" "could" "might". Take a stance and give concrete reasons. 4. Use concrete data over descriptors. "+5% profit" over "increased profit". 5. Write in active voice. Look up the "by Zombies" trick. 6. Use the simplest word that maintains your meaning. No one needs to use the word "utilize". [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548 https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction...
- criddell 7y ago> 5. Write in active voice. Look up the "by Zombies" trick. This is something I struggle with so I took your advice and found this: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/a-scary-easy-way-to-help-you-find-passive-voice/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/a-scary-easy-way-to-help-you-... Thanks!
- mabbo 7y agoThis is awesome. Even after the class I found it so hard to do this and this trick is going to really help. Thanks for sharing it!
- ecyrb 7y ago
- ragona 7y agoIf you search for "amazon narrative writing style" you'll find all kinds of articles. The way that I personally explain this to new Amazonians is that I want their documents to tell a story. Now, I'm in engineering so the the story is going to be about some kind of highly technical topic, but it should start with an introduction, and it should lead the reader to the point that they have a pretty solid understanding of the problem space. If we put a document in front of a leader who has never even heard of our team before they should walk away understanding what the problem we're trying to solve is. That's part of what makes it so hard -- writing for an audience that might not be familiar with ANY of your internal jargon. The documents must also be quite dry; they should avoid unnecessary adjectives, opinions should be called out as such, etc. Don't say, "high throughput," say, "72k TPS." That kind of thing.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoThe participants had not read the agenda, docs and done their actions before the meeting?
- sokoloff 7y agoThis process is designed to ensure that the docs have been read and have been freshly read. I think of it as moving the time and effort into a defined and nearby time, and it's far from a "waste" of time, IMO.
- IggleSniggle 7y agoI had the same initial reaction, but then again...doing it during the meeting, always, ensures that all participants are at least talking about the same thing. I’ve been in meetings where it doesn’t become clear until very late that someone is bullshitting and has not actually read the materials, or read them so lightly that their comments/opinions are not well directed. This is, imho, much worse than making sure everyone is on the same page. Since everyone is presumably going to need to read the docs at some point anyway, incorporating the activity doesn’t really seem like a waste of time to me.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoThat is assuming that the bullshitter or another participant doesn't understand what they read. Also sounds like the Chair did not control the meeting.
- r00fus 7y agoSometimes there is no clear or a weak "chair". Furthermore, if the bullshitter is influential enough that you don't have time/capital in-meeting to call their BS? That's why BS is successful. I see the Amazon approach as an augment to the chair to keep the discussion on-topic. If it's not discussed on the paper, the burden is on the dissenter to provide info / present credentials to rebut.
- Consultant32452 7y agoI've been writing software professionally for about 20 years. I'm not sure I've ever been to a meeting where most of the attendees have prepared by reading relevant materials including documents attached to the meeting invite. Because of this experience, I have a very different expectation. I attach documents to the meeting invite so that people can know where to find it for reference during but mostly after the meeting.
- funkymike 7y ago> I've been in meetings that start with 15 minutes of silent reading, then 45 minutes of discussion. No PowerPoint presenting. I wish this could happen where I am. No one wants to bother reading anything ahead of the meeting to be prepared for a discussion. Then the same people don't have the patience to let the group review the material during the meeting before starting the discussion.
- Topgamer7 7y agoBake it into the meeting.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoPeople won't read ahead, so you all have to get up to speed on the doc, during the meeting, then some jerk manager who is always late comes in and makes us all repeat the same discussion. The meeting ends up taking all the time just to cover what is in the doc but no decision gets made because we ran out of time.
- dkasper 7y agoSounds like you need to change teams.
- duxup 7y agoI WANT TO read ahead, but nobody tells me even what meetings are about despite having company wide meetings on effective meeting and the first point was about setting agendas and seating meeting goals and topics.
- wool_gather 7y agoI've found just declining these no-info meetings to be an effective way to combat the time loss. It's most constructive to send an email alongside saying something like "please share an agenda or materials for this", but that can vary based on context too. And you can even decline after that happens: "Thanks for the details. I'm sorry, but I cannot take the time away from X right now to attend this. Next week may be possible." If somebody really needs my time, they can tell me why -- or go through my manager which they should be doing anyways.
- petra 7y ago>> Write a very good 1-pager explaining it and you've got a much higher chance of it actually happening. Who does this 1-page explainer go to ? who is the gate-keeper ?
- vkou 7y agoYour boss, or his boss. They are a gate keeper, in the sense that they can choose whether or not to fund your idea - or, if they are already on board with funding your idea, they need some concrete document that they can show to their peers, to get them to help you/agree with this prioritisation.
- wool_gather 7y agoI like this idea on the surface. The flipside though is that if everyone's reading the doc for the first time right before discussion, it doesn't allow for much depth of analysis. Do you also send the materials out beforehand?
- vkou 7y agoIt's much better then the traditional design review, where 80% of the participants spend less than 5 minutes reading the doc before discussion.
- r00fus 7y agoPerhaps in a competitive/demanding culture, this is the best you can get. Besides, very few people in decision making positions have time to study all the prep material beforehand. I sure as hell don't do that when I have back-back-back meeting schedules.
- samirm 7y agoI don't see how this would prevent depth of analysis?
- wool_gather 7y agoGenerally people need some time to ponder new input in order to grasp edge cases, work through implications, identify unspoken assumptions, and so on. Some extraverted folks are happy to "think out loud" in a group, but even then it's too easy for a conversation to move quickly past a particular point that deserves more time.
- samirm 7y agoI agree that needing time for analysis is important, but what's preventing you from working through all of this during the meeting?
- sokoloff 7y agoHow could I do any off-line research into the topic or a specific point in your paper if I've only seen it for the first time in the meeting?