4 ms·
The large tech company I work for puts a lot of emphasis on writing. Here are a few suggestions: 1. If you want people to read what you wrote and give you feed
by jkingsbery 6y ago
The large tech company I work for puts a lot of emphasis on writing. Here are a few suggestions:
1. If you want people to read what you wrote and give you feedback, conciseness is important. We have a general rule of thumb that it takes people 30 minutes to read 4-6 pages of terse material, and it takes roughly an hour to then discuss it. As a result, pretty much all our docs are 6 pages (in the main body; appendixes might be added but are written in a way so that the doc stands on its own without them).
2. For many forms of (non-fiction) communication, the inverted pyramid is a helpful way to structure your thoughts. People are most likely to read the beginning of something, When we read the whole thing, we're more likely to pay more attention to the beginning. It's important then to get the most important information in the beginning, with supporting details as you go.
3. Know the audience, and focus on why the audience should care. If it's not clear why the audience would care, try rephrasing or restructuring to focus on the part they actually would care about.
4. Do lots of iterations. Get feedback from others. You can also iterate on your writing yourself: I find that when I write something and come back to it later, I'm better at finding issues. In order to do a lot of iterations, that means you need to plan out your time. In my company, we often kick-off the doc writing process with a "working backwards" schedule: we're presenting to such-and-such VP on Day X, so we have to have a rough draft of the whole doc on Day Y, so we have to have drafts of individual pieces by Day Z.
5. Be aware of what kind of thing your writing. I'd say 75% of my writing, my audience is myself: I'm writing in order to work through thoughts. I approach that differently when I'm writing something for review by teammates, which I again approach differently from a doc written for other groups.
6. Maybe a bit controversial in some circles, but: Strunk and White (https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/dp/020530902X https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-Fourth-William-Strunk/...). It's a short book, and even if you don't do everything in it, the focus on clarity and succinctness is still useful.
- hef19898 6y agoIt still puzzles me how much being forced to stick to 6 pages, ideally completely data based, helps to form concise thoughts and concepts.
- jkingsbery 6y agoIt doesn't make forming them any easier, it's just a forcing function to spend longer on the task. While it certainly is possible to have a topic that just cannot be handled in 6 pages, my experience is that after removing weasel words, filler, non-essential details, adverbs and the like, 6 pages is enough to base a conversation on most topics when the group has basic familiarity with the subject matter.
- ghaff 6y ago>As a result, pretty much all our docs are 6 pages (in the main body; appendixes might be added but are written in a way so that the doc stands on its own without them). It's good to use appendices when there's a lot of background (whether technical/history/etc.) that really isn't important to the central thrust of the document. Also, even at 6 pages, I'd probably recommend some sort of executive summary.
- djohnston 6y agothis is excellent feedback, thanks!