Brevity Helps

At the earliest stages of a project, the definition should be short and to the point. Marketing glitz should be second in importance to clarity of benefits, purpose, intent, and principal features. There are two documents that I like to see early in a project.

The One Pager...

If a project idea has merit, its benefits and salient features can be expressed in one page. Make no mistake; it’s much harder to write one page than ten, but force this document to one page. It can be done. If it can’t be done, then you should be suspicious that the concept is not clear enough to proceed with a project.

The 10/10 pitch...

Ten slides and ten minutes for a presentation that makes the prospective buyer want to buy. It’s a tough job to reduce a concept to ten slides and ten minutes, but it is critical to have the focus that is forced by this 10/10 pitch. This presentation is customer focused and is an exception to my “No PowerPoint” rule (more on that in a later newsletter).

Focus, focus, focus...

The one-pager and the 10/10 presentation must include a few fundamental topics. These are: the intended customers, the benefits they receive, economics, major features, competitive superiority, and competitive barriers.

A common error in early stage project description is to write content-uneven documents. Uneven documents gloss over some areas and drive other areas into deep detail. The challenge is to cover all of the major points at the same level of summary early in the project and to leave the details for later. This will give all of the stakeholders a uniform and consistent view of the project. Of equal importance it will keep people from being put off by reviewing details and investing time to hear details below their level of interest.

A good documentation structure for a project will contain three to four levels of project documentation, with each level disclosing increasing detail about features and design. The most detailed level of documentation contains the design.

Closing...

In my early days, I was guilty of violating these rules on too many occasions. I remember proudly entering the room with 150 viewgraphs in hand and torturously presenting for the entire day. It was a bad idea then and continues to be today. In recent years, I have worked to have too-few viewgraphs, with too-few words on them. A long time ago Xerox and Proctor & Gamble set standards for effective communications. They were right. The purpose of documentation is to efficiently communicate.  Brevity helps.

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