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Amazonion here. The purpose of doc writing is for the author to dump their ideas and convey the critical pieces of information. It lets the reader consume the i

Amazonion here. The purpose of doc writing is for the author to dump their ideas and convey the critical pieces of information. It lets the reader consume the information at their pace, and re-read even after the meeting. The document starts the conversation and let’s the reader understand the problem, why it’s important, what things we have or have not considered, what trade offs have been made, and how we arrived at the conclusion or solution. There are many, many things Amazon does not get right. The document writing culture is probably one of our not so secret, “secret weapons”. At many companies I worked at, we had a PowerPoint or presentation driven culture. And the purpose of those meetings is to listen to the presenter, at the presenters pace. The meeting becomes about the presenter and what they think is important, as opposed to being about the reader. In presentation driven meetings, the presenter talks and questions actually distract from the presentation - often times presenters will bluntly ask for questions to be saved to the end. My own team has a strong culture of getting engineers to write, and help them write well. It’s not about perfect English, but it is about touching on the key points and letting readers comment and ask questions. Meetings without documents often go completely off the rails - especially because if the kinds of problems we’re solving. Without focus, meetings delve into tangents and branches off of those tangents. To be fair - this still happens if the document hasn’t been adequately prepared, but often because you find the document owner hasn’t fully thought through the problem or fully did their homework.

alok-g 5y ago
In my experience, the issue is not presentations actually. Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too. The real challenge is that slides present much less word-count space to deliver the right message, and most authors fail to do that right. A phrase commonly attributed to Blaise Pascal comes to mind [1]. That presentations being synchronous vs. everyone reading their own pace is not the key issue. Sharing the slides in print for the meetings can solve that. At one employment I was in, we were using PowerPoint even more effectively than we use Word. [1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-would-have-written-a-shorter-letter/ https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-woul...
- throwawaySlu 5y ago
  I read the link you shared. There is something to be said about expressing an idea with sufficient clarity in fewer words, without jargon or “officialise” or more information that’s necessary. And Amazon doesn’t disagree with that principle. If anything, being clear, crisp, and succinct are the hallmarks of a great document. >Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too. For the kinds of problems that require document writing at Amazon, this statement simply just isn’t true. And the document review is NOT a presentation. Let me say that again - It is not a presentation. Presentations are about the presenter, often presenting as if they are the authority figure on a topic. Written document reviews are about the reader — giving the reader the opportunity to understand how a problem has or hasn’t been evaluated. The document reader is not the authority. As a matter of fact, they share documents to get feedback and find gaps in their thinking, or seek feedback on how they evaluated alternatives, and so on. Presentations and Amazon document reviews are fundamentally two different things. There is absolutely zero similarity between the two. The document should focus on the immediate topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs etc are provided in appendices. This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format. And the simple proof to back my statements — Amazon and everything it has accomplished at what people now call “Amazon scale”. This is literally the secret sauce.
  - alok-g 5y ago
    ## I see two-three aspects that you are conflating together: 1. Expectations on the flow of information, whether the author/presentor is: (a) the authority figure, is teaching something to the audience and later answering questions or offer clarifications, but may also receive counter-points and feedback. (b) presenting their current thoughts and looking for feedback on the same to refine their thoughts and plans. I see no reason why 'b' isn't doable with slide-presentations, and we have actually done that more frequently than 'a'. 2. The container, slides vs. document, in which the information is presented. We are agreeing that slides require being more crisp, which is hard, owing to expectations of less text. Whereas a document also should ideally be crisp, however, expectations of use of a larger number of words and fuller sentences makes it easier. You have stated that the information for "kinds of problems that require document writing" and "topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs" cannot be put into slides, but without explaining why so. I am questioning this again because I and my team has done all that successfully and repeatedly. 3. Sync vs. async. consumption of #2 by the audience. Even information put in slides can be shared with the audience for a silent consumption before discussions, and also be referred to later if and when needed. ## The real challenges are: A. The popular guidance given for slide-presentations is to keep text on the slides to a bare minimum and have the focus instead on presenter speaking during the meeting. This makes things further worse as the slides by themselves end up being uninterpretable without the presentor speaking. Or in other words, the slides end up being little more than speaker notes. I generally disagree with this blanket guidance, and have used slides in both ways: (a) Everything I need to communicate to the audience is written and visible on the slides, and I am peripheral to the meeting (think of a Teaching Assistant as opposed to a Lecturer), and (b) The slides carry just the visuals which I explain live verbally. Both 'a' and 'b' have their place depending on the context, i.e., the subject matter, audience, expected flow of information, etc. As an example, 'b' is more useful for classroom teaching to kids or otherwise for an audience who are averse to reading (there are many of them outside of work). B. Use of slides require bring crisper, which we're already agreeing to. C. Slide-presentations are typically done in sync manner under the status quo (but which need not be as noted in '3' above). The analog for documents would be to have all audience read section-by-section or para-by-para and discussing before proceeding. Whether applied to slides or documents, this is more useful only when the material has a sequential structure, i.e., the next section cannot be understood well or agreed upon until the current one is. Even if such sequencing is not there, sync does not always hurt though. Sync will be less optimal if: (a) The material is somehow such that the readers must go back and forth through the material before they would understand that the author is communicating. Too much of that won't be recommended for documents either. (b) When different audience members have widely varying (i) prior knowledge or understanding of the material, (ii) reading/absorption speed, or (iii) interest level in the subtopics or detail. Under this scenario, synchronization is at least one of ineffective or inefficient. Going fast would save time for those who already know, absorb fast, or want to skip subtopics/details, while the others would fail to follow. And vice versa. The said variations apply to document reading also, however, async consumption allows some audience members to finish sooner and then do something else while the remaining finish reading. ## Summary of my understanding If we do not conflate various above points, we'll find that it's not about document vs. slides. The real problem are 'A' above (bad guidance on how to make/present slides) and 'C(b)' above (cited variability in the audience). Between the two, 'A' is more easily fixed by changing guidance and training. Then using slides with silent reading becomes an available option for 'C(b)' too, except for the challenge 'B' above. If the authors have the skill for 'B' above, then not only slide-presentations, but also documents will be a lot better. So would also be meeting summaries which usually don't have the vigour/quality even at Amazon. ## Closing comments Please think through the above carefully and then tell me what you think. I am open to debate. :-)

alok-g 5y ago

In my experience, the issue is not presentations actually. Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too. The real challenge is that slides present much less word-count space to deliver the right message, and most authors fail to do that right. A phrase commonly attributed to Blaise Pascal comes to mind [1]. That presentations being synchronous vs. everyone reading their own pace is not the key issue. Sharing the slides in print for the meetings can solve that. At one employment I was in, we were using PowerPoint even more effectively than we use Word. [1] https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-would-have-written-a-shorter-letter/ https://intenseminimalism.com/2010/if-i-had-more-time-i-woul...

throwawaySlu 5y ago
I read the link you shared. There is something to be said about expressing an idea with sufficient clarity in fewer words, without jargon or “officialise” or more information that’s necessary. And Amazon doesn’t disagree with that principle. If anything, being clear, crisp, and succinct are the hallmarks of a great document. >Whatever can be presented using documents can be presented using slides too. For the kinds of problems that require document writing at Amazon, this statement simply just isn’t true. And the document review is NOT a presentation. Let me say that again - It is not a presentation. Presentations are about the presenter, often presenting as if they are the authority figure on a topic. Written document reviews are about the reader — giving the reader the opportunity to understand how a problem has or hasn’t been evaluated. The document reader is not the authority. As a matter of fact, they share documents to get feedback and find gaps in their thinking, or seek feedback on how they evaluated alternatives, and so on. Presentations and Amazon document reviews are fundamentally two different things. There is absolutely zero similarity between the two. The document should focus on the immediate topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs etc are provided in appendices. This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format. And the simple proof to back my statements — Amazon and everything it has accomplished at what people now call “Amazon scale”. This is literally the secret sauce.
- alok-g 5y ago
  ## I see two-three aspects that you are conflating together: 1. Expectations on the flow of information, whether the author/presentor is: (a) the authority figure, is teaching something to the audience and later answering questions or offer clarifications, but may also receive counter-points and feedback. (b) presenting their current thoughts and looking for feedback on the same to refine their thoughts and plans. I see no reason why 'b' isn't doable with slide-presentations, and we have actually done that more frequently than 'a'. 2. The container, slides vs. document, in which the information is presented. We are agreeing that slides require being more crisp, which is hard, owing to expectations of less text. Whereas a document also should ideally be crisp, however, expectations of use of a larger number of words and fuller sentences makes it easier. You have stated that the information for "kinds of problems that require document writing" and "topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs" cannot be put into slides, but without explaining why so. I am questioning this again because I and my team has done all that successfully and repeatedly. 3. Sync vs. async. consumption of #2 by the audience. Even information put in slides can be shared with the audience for a silent consumption before discussions, and also be referred to later if and when needed. ## The real challenges are: A. The popular guidance given for slide-presentations is to keep text on the slides to a bare minimum and have the focus instead on presenter speaking during the meeting. This makes things further worse as the slides by themselves end up being uninterpretable without the presentor speaking. Or in other words, the slides end up being little more than speaker notes. I generally disagree with this blanket guidance, and have used slides in both ways: (a) Everything I need to communicate to the audience is written and visible on the slides, and I am peripheral to the meeting (think of a Teaching Assistant as opposed to a Lecturer), and (b) The slides carry just the visuals which I explain live verbally. Both 'a' and 'b' have their place depending on the context, i.e., the subject matter, audience, expected flow of information, etc. As an example, 'b' is more useful for classroom teaching to kids or otherwise for an audience who are averse to reading (there are many of them outside of work). B. Use of slides require bring crisper, which we're already agreeing to. C. Slide-presentations are typically done in sync manner under the status quo (but which need not be as noted in '3' above). The analog for documents would be to have all audience read section-by-section or para-by-para and discussing before proceeding. Whether applied to slides or documents, this is more useful only when the material has a sequential structure, i.e., the next section cannot be understood well or agreed upon until the current one is. Even if such sequencing is not there, sync does not always hurt though. Sync will be less optimal if: (a) The material is somehow such that the readers must go back and forth through the material before they would understand that the author is communicating. Too much of that won't be recommended for documents either. (b) When different audience members have widely varying (i) prior knowledge or understanding of the material, (ii) reading/absorption speed, or (iii) interest level in the subtopics or detail. Under this scenario, synchronization is at least one of ineffective or inefficient. Going fast would save time for those who already know, absorb fast, or want to skip subtopics/details, while the others would fail to follow. And vice versa. The said variations apply to document reading also, however, async consumption allows some audience members to finish sooner and then do something else while the remaining finish reading. ## Summary of my understanding If we do not conflate various above points, we'll find that it's not about document vs. slides. The real problem are 'A' above (bad guidance on how to make/present slides) and 'C(b)' above (cited variability in the audience). Between the two, 'A' is more easily fixed by changing guidance and training. Then using slides with silent reading becomes an available option for 'C(b)' too, except for the challenge 'B' above. If the authors have the skill for 'B' above, then not only slide-presentations, but also documents will be a lot better. So would also be meeting summaries which usually don't have the vigour/quality even at Amazon. ## Closing comments Please think through the above carefully and then tell me what you think. I am open to debate. :-)