When asking a question, lead with the question, and put only the bits you need to clarify your question underneath. For these communications, the shorter you can make it, the better.
When writing documentation, you're writing for the future, and should aim for completeness rather than full comprehension immediately -- you want something people can look back at later when they're not clear on something, rather than something that your reader will read in one sitting and remember flawlessly. Your reader isn't going to be able to retain that much stuff.
If you absolutely need your reader to understand some points, I recommend keeping the points as short as possible, and also to your point, asking a question that requires them to have understood what you wrote (e.g. "people who signed up before this date will be grandfathered in, so may see different rates than new customers. Are you aware of any marketing material which might give conflicting information? " -- the answer is probably "no", but in the course of answering that question, they had to understand what you were saying, and as a bonus if the answer is "yes" you've avoided a problem before it happened).
Quickly reading and understanding almost everything I can find—code, plans, schedules, calendars, strategy, memos—is how I excel in remote environments. It's not a huge time commitment, 20 minutes a day, but I have the organization's "state" modeled in my head, which helps me identify dependencies and potential bottlenecks before they're surprises.
There are are advantages to the "quick call", and some people definitely work better that way. But I much prefer written communication: not only do I get to refer back to it, but it's more asynchronous, freeing me up considerably.
"Let's talk" often seems like a barbarous imposition on my time, that I have to hear it right now and make any decisions while you're staring at me. I try to keep in mind that they just have a different communications style, but that's not always easy.
Without a doubt the first sentence is true. Successful written communication requires properly encoding the information (writing) and properly decoding it (reading). A flawed reading of an email means communication breaks down independent of the quality of the writing.
The second is also true, but incomplete. In many cases, there is a failure to read (either because of laziness or "I already know what he's going to say") or a language issue - even for native English speakers. It's not at all uncommon for someone to miss a "not", think "and" rather than "or", interpret "weeks" as "days" and so on.
Edit: One story that comes to mind is related to a policy our department was implementing a number of years ago. I sent an email with what I thought was minor supporting information. I got an angry reply of six paragraphs, totally irate that I would suggest something so crazy, listing all the ways I was wrong. I responded to say "I think you read my first sentence wrong." The response: "Oops!"
> But a year after surgical teams at eight hospitals adopted a 19-item checklist, the average patient death rate fell more than 40 percent and the rate of complications fell by about a third, the researchers reported.
https://web.archive.org/web/20151103232100/http://www.nytime...
PRs don’t need checklists IMO. If they do maybe your team is too large.
That makes a difference in focus/readability.
Try it.
When you're remote you miss a lot of context. Overcommunicating in writing helps address that. Eliminating information or not expecting people to fully read and engage with what they read is going in the wrong direction of the fundamental problem.
I like to lay out the decisions I'm going to make if I don't get feedback, if possible. That seems to prompt feedback when feedback is required -- it seems the human desire to fix mistakes is stronger then it is to answer open ended questions. It likely gives the reader some context as to why you need the information as well.
I’m sorry, an IC having time?
What changed my perspective though is the book "Comedy Writing Secrets". It's a very different topic, but the general aspects of writing fun an engaging texts translate quite well.
One example I've seen it done brilliantly is the re-frame docs https://day8.github.io/re-frame/re-frame/ - I often point it to people as an example of technical writing so good, that its fun to read just for the sheer pleasure of it, regardless of whether one writes Clojure or not.
_why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby is also a famous example of this.
Wiio's laws are always relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiio%27s_laws
The main thesis being "Communication usually fails, except by accident".
You need add enough context for the event to be processed but you can’t know what will happen when it is...
I think this is the case unless the problem is very relevant to what you are working on at the moment. Normally what I would do, if I were writing an email to explain a problem, is create that explanation in depth on a wiki or other knowledge repository somewhere. Write the email referencing the url of this wiki, and explain the main points in the email.
This is as a general rule if I am explaining something important for tech team to know, if I am explaining something that is important for product owner to know I write it in as verbose an email as is required to explain everything. That's up to the product owner to follow. Generally after receiving an email like this they will want a meeting where I can explain in person and draw stuff on the whiteboard.
Suprisingly effective, especially if you are open about it. Of course it applies only for those with 1000 unread (after filters).
(But I read it anyway.)
I guess the effect of following this rule depends a lot on formatting, size of hands and monitor and how long your arms are and how far away you are standing.
It's one of those things you apply only when it suits you, and ignore when it doesn't work to your benefit.
Jokes aside: I wrote this because it's both sad and interesting how people cope with huge amounts of communication that waits for their action.
One thing that may not work very well is depending on Slack channels or other chat systems for context. It's fine for an on-going issue but does not work for general information. Important topics are just too hard to find later.
You need to learn how to restructure your writing. Most logical people naturally write in a way where it’s premise, premise, premise, conclusion. Instead, you need to write conclusion, premise, premise, premise.
One way I’ve found to help my team learn to write this way is to institute a rule that any writing longer than 3 paragraphs has to have a TL;DR at the top that is no more than 3 sentences. This gets people over the hump of putting the big ask up front and then after a few weeks, they start naturally writing that way.
Cultural bias is very much a thing.
I would like to understand why the reverse is "jumping the gun". I am assuming the arguments have not changed, the reasoning remains the same. Why is a mere change of order "jumping the gun"?
The remaining arguments are more likely to be accepted or rejected based on what you know conclusion is. So instead of asking "is this true", people will start either with "I am looking for nitpick cause I see this is going toward bad conclusion" or with "yeah sure, it shows what I think".
However, they will still feel like they evaluated arguments on merit. If the conclusion is last, people can and some will go back to arguments to bias them, but it is easier to see what they are doing.
By articulating the reasons, methods, and considerations that went into a decision, you're slowly and softly building an argument. Individuals are less likely to have an instinctive reaction to something this way. At the very least, it's proven (yes, as in measured) to be the case here.
It's like having an abstract or a blurb to briefly summarize for management.
Similarly, if you need someone to take action based on the result, you don't put it at the end where nobody's going to read it. You put it at the beginning, first thing, and then build up the background.
How could you read anything without knowing the point in the beginning. Even research papers start off with an abstract.
> How could you read anything without knowing the point in the beginning. Even research papers start off with an abstract.
It is pretty easy to read email or argument without knowing the conclusion up front. You just read on. Research papers are specific writing with specific rules. I dont really think they are in general example of good or persuasive writing.
It makes no sense for this "culture" to think less of research or any writing that intends to persuade because it starts with a introduction or summary. Anyone who starts with a summary of what is going to follow will be a more effective communicator. They would be missing out on lots of writing that is done this way.
Your first paragraph or sentence will always be an introduction. If you choose to not take advantage of it to set the context of what follows the writing will be more confusing or require a second read through. Its like wandering through a forest vs following a trail map. At work, writing something that needs automatically needs a second read through is a problem.
I guess i have hard time believing this culture exists the way is presented, and isn't being misinterpreted.
> It is pretty easy to read email or argument without knowing the conclusion up front.
Its not, that was the point of the thread were commenting on
> Research papers are specific writing with specific rules. I dont really think they are in general example of good or persuasive writing.
This is one example, it has rules because those are effective at communicating. How can you just write it off like that? With no reason other then you think it doesn't count?
This is a non-argument. In the US, writing is considered effective if you put the bottom line up front. GP wrote that BLUFfing is considered offensive in their culture. Now you respond that lots of people like BLUFfing.
Now you say it's not culture-dependent but a universal truth that BLUF is better.
Well, other cultures disagree.
The post that I responded to suggested having an intro with a summary of what's to follow is offensive
That argument does not make sense.
> It makes no sense for this "culture" to think less of research or any writing that intends to persuade because it starts with a introduction or summary.
And it does not make sense for you to look down at writing that puts conclusion to the end going with arguments first. It is just an habit and meaningless difference, that is all.
> This is one example, it has rules because those are effective at communicating. How can you just write it off like that? With no reason other then you think it doesn't count?
Researchers and their papers are not effective at communicating. That a thing that researches complain about periodically.
In any case, corporate mail is not research paper. Among other things, it is supposed to be significantly shorter. Just like it is not newspaper article.
Interesting book on this topic: The culture map, by Erin Meyer. (https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Map-INTL-ED-Decoding/dp/16103...)
It has a whole chapter on this topic: 3 - Why versus How, the art of persuasion in the multicultural world.
Anything you write will always have a first sentence or paragraph. Your saying it's offensive to use that to give an overview of what's to come and to set the tone of the writing?
The difference according to the book is that if you want to convice an audience of something, e.g, result of a study, americans are more interested in the results and how to apply it. Germans want to understand how you got to the results, what the process was behind it so they can understand that your results are correct.
Can I ask what culture you're referring to?
As an IC, people rarely read my emails if it doesn't fit in their screen (so 3 paragraphs is the max).
The only thing I've found that works is to send details, and then probe the recipient on each important item in there to make sure they understood what I wrote. If I'm too detailed, they will get lost. If I'm very concise (but still complete), they'll misinterpret.
Getting people to reflect back to you what they understood is encouraged in most communications books. You can write the perfect email, and it will still get misunderstood.
Edit:
It is amusing that people are responding giving me writing advice. Equally amusing is the implicit tone in some of the comments that I'm doing it wrong and implying I don't follow what they are suggesting - especially when I didn't even discuss how I write my emails!
As I said: You can write the perfect email, and there will always be someone who will misinterpret it. The problem is not merely in the content, but in the other (including their worldview, culture, social status, etc). The solution isn't to try to become a more perfect writer, but to understand the dynamics involved in communication (written or verbal).
To paraphrase one of the books: People will interpret what you say based on their worldview - something that you often do not have access to. It's their worldview that will often make them misinterpret something that is very clear and unambiguous in what you say. Accept that reality and work around it.