Re:On Technical Writing
by wenc on Tuesday December 31, 2019 @03:31PM
(#21924473)
Since you brought up writing business emails...
For writing emails and structuring presentations I've found the Pyramid Principle [1] to be quite practical. (apparently McKinsey consultants are trained to do this, along with stuff like MECE, etc. Whatever we think the actual abilities of McKinsey consultants may be, they are generally pretty good at making million dollar PowerPoint decks :)
The idea is simple:
1. Start with the answer first.
2. Group and summarize your supporting arguments. (not more than 3)
3. Logically order your supporting ideas. (chronology, structure or priority)
The article below makes the point that "this “top-down” structure is counter-intuitive for many of us with a scientific or engineering background", but I've observed it is exactly this structure we must adopt for impactful business writing.
For writing emails and structuring presentations I've found the Pyramid Principle [1] to be quite practical. (apparently McKinsey consultants are trained to do this, along with stuff like MECE, etc. Whatever we think the actual abilities of McKinsey consultants may be, they are generally pretty good at making million dollar PowerPoint decks :)
The idea is simple:
1. Start with the answer first.
2. Group and summarize your supporting arguments. (not more than 3)
3. Logically order your supporting ideas. (chronology, structure or priority)
The article below makes the point that "this “top-down” structure is counter-intuitive for many of us with a scientific or engineering background", but I've observed it is exactly this structure we must adopt for impactful business writing.
[1] https://medium.com/lessons-from-mckinsey/the-pyramid-princip...