Tips for Effective Written Professional Communication

The importance of effective, clear communication is just as important now as it's ever been. This article will give you some concrete tips and suggestions that ensure your content maximizes both its efficiency and effectiveness.

What Types of Communication Apply?

The list below is almost certainly not exhaustive, but it covers many of the communication formats that I create most often:

• Emails
• Blog posts
• LinkedIn posts (could also apply to X / BlueSky / Mastodon)
• Teams / Slack
• Official business memos
• Executive summaries
• Power Point presentations
• Wiki pages / Notion docs / Loops
• Readme's

1: Know Your Audience

First, identify the target of your communication. Then, think about what you have in common - and not - with the target. Here are some questions that might help in this process:

• Do they do the exact same job as me?
• Is it in the same precise business domain?
• Is their experience level the same as mine?

Additionally, time considerations can matter:

• Should the content be relevant a year from now? More?

Your communication should not be about showing how much you know, but what you want your audience to get out of it, or the action you want them to take. They often don't know your job or your business.

2: Use Bullets and Formatting

Reading a long narrative or paragraph is challenging. Giving readers a quick set of key points helps them digest content quickly.

• Make it easy
• Keep bullets simple
• Use formatting to call attention to key points

3: Less is More

Once you've created the content, I strongly recommend going back through it and eliminating words and paragraphs that are not needed.

4: Avoid Inside Jokes

The wider your audience gets, the less likely it is that everyone will understand any humor you include in your communication.

Before including slang, humor, jokes, or similar content, consider whether that content is equally understandable by everyone that may read it. Having content that some don't understand often will mean that the rest of your message is also more poorly understood.

Keeping a playful tone 😄 is still possible, just be careful of insider content that only a few would understand.

5: Minimize Assumptions

Assumptions can often come in the form of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) and if you were thrown a bit by my initial use of "TLAs" - that was intentional and an example of exactly the kind of assumption that can throw readers for a loop and distract from your message.

Having a clear understanding of your audience and what they may or may not know can help. Using an acronym may be fine in cases where you are certain that everyone already knows it.

6: Use Visuals Effectively

A picture is worth a thousand words is something to keep in mind. Flows or relationships or architectures can be represented succinctly with a diagram.

A code sample is another example of a good visual - but keep in mind that if you're using some "real" code as the sample, it may have extra lines that are not needed in your example and should be removed -- even if you do something like the comment in the example below:

1public void SomeMethod()
2{
3  // content goes here
4}

7: Summarize Up Front

A common shorthand in the tech world is tl;dr - which means too long; didn't read. At the top of many of my blog posts I'll include a tl;dr note - which summarizes the entire post.

A quick summary can help the reader understand whether they SHOULD keep reading, since it encapsulates all of the content in a short blurb. If the blurb is interesting or applies to them, they can keep reading and get into the details.

Summarizing is especially important if you're requesting action or making a recommendation.

In cases where you're requesting action or making a recommendation, get to the point immediately (and use formatting), as in the following examples that might be at the top or front of a communication:

• Please create report and return by next Tuesday
• Recommend using vendor A

You can elaborate on both requests and recommendations, but making your point up front eliminates confusion quickly.

8: Avoid Metaphors

Metaphors are a bit like humor: they can distract from the real message you're trying to get across. Often times they are not well understood on their own and the thing you're trying to represent is now dependent on the metaphor.

Clear definitions are super important and probably imply that some kind of "reference" or "key" get included on your communication if you intend to refer to the metaphor more than once.

An example of this might be some up-front project activities:

• Get a list of tasks with their priorities
• Identify dependencies
• Identify people to work them
• Create a work sequence

The above might be referred to metaphorically as "prime the pump." Some people will not know what "prime the pump" even means, let alone be able to associate that to the initial activities of the project. Even if you call the activities above "phase 1" that still may need a reference key to clearly call out exactly what you mean by that (in more than one place, potentially).

10: In Messaging, Avoid "Hi"

As a final "bonus tip," I suggest not starting a new message communication with a single message like:

Hi, Erik

This frustrating message is all-too-common, and doesn't really help. No response is called for and I have no idea what you might be talking about. This is especially jarring if I'm concentrating on something and now need to think about who the sender is and what they might want.

A much better approach might be:

Hi, Erik - need your help with an invoice we received...

At this point I even can help assess priority based on the additional context of the message and choose to deal with immediately or respond later when I'm not busy.

11: Do Important Communications in Two Stages

When crafting an important communication, create a first draft and then do one of two things - or both:

• Come back to it later (best is the next day, after a night's sleep)
• Ask for feedback from people you trust

I did both of the above when writing this post. 😉

Often times a fresh perspective and a second set of eyes can help you refine your message or avoid a problematic phrase.

Happy Communicating! 😄