Writing optimisation
This is a very raw thought that I’ve been exploring with my friend Panos during a call.
I had the thesis that optimising for readers is usually the way to go, let’s examine that
Time spent writing >=< readers * time spent reading
5 min read 5 readers
25 min spent writing max?
On the eyes of the company: Time spent writing + readers * time spent reading = 50min
But if you spend 5 min optimizing the read down to 2 min 30 min for you 10 for them 40 for the company!
This is all pretty simple nice math
Simple example: Technical onepager decision record 15 min write 4 readers 2 min read time 23min company time
Expected outcome: Inform, provide discussion platform for async feedback
Alternatively, that time would invested in:
- 4 person 30m meeting
- Directly building the thing
- Decision is bad:
- Build time of 3h is gone
- Significant potential risks
- Has to be rolled back, more time
- New decision has to be made
- Decision is good:
- Stakeholders have not been informed, their systems are affected
- How long will discovery take?
- Fastest path:
- 5min Slack+Confluence search
- 5min writing to an eng
- 10 mins of bouncing around folks, end up in the correct team
- ? chance that Pan or the approver are currently available
- Wall clock time is at least 8h probably due to async!
- Slowest path:
- Discovery is days or never
- Stakeholders have not been informed, their systems are affected
- Decision is bad:
Optimal outcome: Someone shares info, saving a future project a lot of time
What about reading comprehension?