The role of the Product Manager is to communicate the future states of some product or service. Writing is the best way to communicate the product vision and drive alignment. Written documents allow the reader to consider the facts, separate from the personality presenting the idea.
Writing is hard. Done badly and the reader cannot see the core ideas because they are stumbling over poor grammar, incomprehensible language. Get past these basic issues and you might find that your document is uninteresting, uninspiring or just dull.
So how do you write well? Here are some tips to make your next document jump off the page.
The basics
Avoid technical words, jargon and abbreviations.
Use plain, simple english that anybody can understand.
Ensure a high ratio of new information to words. Avoid repetition.
Don't make assumptions of knowledge. Introduce any new terminology.
Use commas. Check grammar in general.
Use short sentences.
Get capitalization right.
Understand your audience.
Examples:
Wrong:
With product X you you can swap you t4.2xlarge instances for t4.small.
Right:
With product X you can reduce the size of you instances.
Wrong:
With product X you you can swap you t4.2xlarge instances for t4.small.
Right:
With product X you can reduce the size of you instances.
Wrong:
Product X integrate with product Y.
Right:
Product Y is an existing feature that enables you to do X,Y. Product X integrates with Y to provide Z.
Pseudo Language and Placeholders
Writers block is real, especially in writing documents that combine narrative and data. Often you can get stuck in a deep hole of data analysis to pull that critical stat necessary to support your argument. Don't let that happen. When you are writing just write. If you don't know something or want to skip ahead just use pseudo language and placeholders. Think of this like creating a detailed outline of your document as a first step then going back to fill in the blanks. This approach helps you write and end to end story and think about the structure of your arguments, rather than getting stuck on one fact or argument that might end up getting cut in a later revision. You should aim to write entire documents or sections in a single writing session using this technique. For example,
Product A is the primary product in portfolio P. Product A delivered $XM revenue in 2022 (+Y% YoY) which represents Z% of portfolio P.
Product A is liked by customers for its core capabilities of scale and performance. However, customers are increasingly trying to do ___ and need additional features in Product A. Customers X,Y and Z are asking us to deliver features A,B,C to enable them to do ____.
In conclusion, Product A is an important component of portfolio P but we need to invest in features A,B,C to enable customers like X,Y,Z to achieve ____.
Comments