Stoutlining -- An Approach for Improved Technical Writing

Today, I want to offer you something that, although a bit outside of my normal areas of focus (and typical finished writing style)

• I hope you find both relevant and useful

Being able to get your point across in written form accurately and succinctly is a critical business skill, whether:

• drafting a mission statement
• writing a project charter
• documenting a personnel review
• creating a curriculum
• or developing a policy manual

If you find this is something that you or your staff can improve upon, read on…

When we first began to develop our PRISMS best practices several years ago, it surprised me to find that so few people possess good writing skills, regardless of their intelligence, spoken eloquence or level of education.

• the biggest roadblock we faced was not finding experts on the target subjects
• but finding experts that could also express the information with competent and efficient written communications
• I came to realize that this was a capability that the majority of business people struggle with
• Effective and efficient writing takes a lot of practice and some disciplined technique

In particular, business and technical writing on complex subjects places a different set of demands on the author compared to other forms:

• writing must be precise; unambiguous and free of literary flourish
• it must present the flow of information in a structured manner
• it must be concise

When it comes to technical writing, I struggle as much as the next person.
The aspects I find most difficult are

• keeping on point
• obsessing over punctuation, usage and form too early in the process
• balancing the amount of content of each topic area and
• properly sequencing information

The technique I created to alleviate these issues is detailed outlining using full declarative statements

• I call it "Stoutlining"
• You are reading an example of this practice right now

Rather than a typical outline of bullet points, you structure a single thought in a clipped but functional sentence form

I find that this approach offers several benefits over simply 'writing away' and constantly wordsmithing the results

• it is fast to develop
• it forces economy of words and thoughts
• it is easy to review (either as an author or by others)
• out-of-sequence statements can be quickly identified and reordered without wreaking havoc on paragraph form and structure
• it reduces the amount of time and effort spend re-writing formal sentences
• punctuation, tense and other stylistic elements are not addressed until the flow of concepts is fully baked

Similarly, when compared to the traditional skeletonized outline,

• which can prove troublesome to recall intentions later
• or be difficult for others to follow
• this technique allows a complete train of thought to be developed
• without getting distracted by constant editing to address readability issues

Once statements are completed, appropriate headings can be added, and individual thoughts can be quickly developed into more cohesive paragraph form. Given that stoutlining is simply an interim writing technique, there are no real rules so it is easy to adopt with a bit of practice. I find it has cut my time per page of finished output in half when compared to simply writing in stream of consciousness.

When the time comes to compose your next literary masterpiece, give this technique a try and see if you find it as useful to your own writing efforts as I have found it to be with my own.

Comments

[Derry Simmel]

CONGRATULATIONS to you and Planview on your Gartner review !!

[T.]

Thanks Derry! Actually I have an entry on that in the works, but we are very pleased with the outcome of the 2009 Gartner PPM Magic Quadrant - proof that there is still room for a best-of-breed provider at the top of the heap!

[Hanu Karavadi]

Thanks Terry for an interesting article on an important subject.
I am one of those who can never write a page without some one editing for me.
My problem in particular comes my professional education.
As an Engineer I thougght all the ideas can easily be expressed by a combination of functions, formulae and drawings.
But now when I am working with business units, I struggle to write policy, procedure or best practice documents that need words not functions or drawings.
Why don't you write a blog on expalining what is diffrence and relation between policy, procedure, process, standard, best prectice and guide line?
I always have a struggle how to classify a documnet.
Thanks again

[Terry Doerscher]

Hanu,

I know where you are coming from, as I spent many years in the engineering realm myself. Thanks for the topic suggestion and look for an entry on it soon. Regards,

T