Eight Practical Communication Power-Ups
tl;dr (too long ; didn’t read)
Communication is rated as one of the most critical PM skills and is at the centre of your PM craft.
These eight practical power-ups will make it easier for you to;
tailor your message to your audience
net down to your key takeaways
focus your audience on the desired outcome
Why not take the challenge and apply one of these per day to your communication?
From my experience in product and leading teams of product managers, I’ve seen that one of the most critical competencies of a product manager (PM) is the ability to communicate.
Most PM’s measure themselves by the impact that they can make on their product, their users and on their business outcomes. In order to achieve outcomes, you need to inspire others. Whether they be engineers, designers, stakeholders or other product managers, you must inspire in order to lead. You need your audience;
- to know the why
- to feel affinity, empathy and passion for the topic
- to inspire action from your communication
And of course, PMs must do all that without the majority of their audience reporting to them. This is why, communication is at the centre of all you do as a PM.
In Atlassian, we use our own tools, so it probably comes as no surprise that most of our work happens in Confluence. Here we craft everything from strategy to blogs announcing our latest features.
I conducted a small survey of Atlassian PMs, which found that Great Communication was ranked as the most impactful aspect of practicing the PM Craft. The survey found, that when we PM’s talk about great communication, we’re not solely referring to oral forms — many of us spend a lot of time, effort and feel stressed when trying to write high quality impactful communications.
At Atlassian, PMs use written communications in many situations that are key to our craft; decision-making using DACIs, kicking off projects with Project Posters and conveying vision & strategy through strategic plans.
Yet practicing great written communication seems ambiguous and opaque to many of us. Sharing context in the most concise form possible is a true art. That’s why I’ve written these eight practical communication power-ups to help you. You’re welcome
(Oh… I’ll be using Confluence as the example of where we write, but you can use whatever tool you like)
Eight Practical Communication Power Ups💪
Too long; didn’t read (tl;dr)
Every page you write should have a tl;dr (too long ; didn’t read). We are required to consume an exponentially increasing amount of Confluence content. Don’t force your audience to walk through the whole journey. Summarise the key takeaways of your page into a couple points. At a minimum, your reader should be able to decide whether they need to read the rest of the page. Better yet, if you’ve netted it down to the key points your target audience needs to know. Do not put paragraph upon paragraph in your tl;dr. Keep it tight!
The narrative thread
When you are producing long form content, especially if it’s a significant amount of complex content, try to determine the high level narrative first. What are the most critical and fundamental things you want your audience to think, feel and do? There should be logical continuity and flow in the information on the page. 6-pagers are perfect for applying this approach.
For instance if you are communicating strategy and execution, try adding short stakeholder letter at the start to lay out the executive summary. Ensure that this thread runs through the rest of your page and is logically and coherently supported by your OKRs and metrics, which should be backed by your roadmap, which is related to your risks, dependencies and asks.
Your audience is time poor — get to the point first
Some of us like telling stories and think it’s good to start at the start, get through the middle and finish cathartically at the end. In executive comms, you should be doing the opposite. Start with the takeaway for the audience and then go into the why. What’s the simple conclusion or action you need from the audience — start there, then justify with the rationale and supporting facts.
Inspired by the Minto principle
Think of your communication as a pyramid, the key point at the top, the detail to support below — rather than a funnel where you share the detail, journey, analysis and eventually reach conclusion. That was the journey you were on, but resist the temptation to tell the story that way. Start with what’s the simple conclusion or action you need from the audience and then justify with the rationale. Your execs will thank you for using their time wisely.
Your audience is not the expert… you are
Don’t assume that the audience has the same depth of knowledge and context as you. Avoid jargon, use acronyms only if they are well and widely known. Define acronyms on first use. Put yourself in your audiences’ shoes to ensure your page can be read and understood quickly. Keep technical detail to what is critical and relevant for your audience — don’t go unnecessarily deep.
Hyperlink your way to easy consumption
When you add a link, you should summarise the point you want your audience to walk away with. Don’t force someone to go out of flow, open another page, search for meaning and consume a heap of detail. It’s your audience, treat their time with respect and make it easy for them to conclude what you want them to.
When you add a link, deep link to the specific heading or text on the page that supports the point you are making. DO NOT force your audience to scroll ten folds deep down a page to find whatever point you had in mind.
Structure for hierarchy and flow
Lay out your page in logical order and use styles to convey the structure and hierarchy / flow of your comms. If it’s a big page, show the structure at the top of the page for easy comprehension and navigating.
Use visuals to bring your point home
A picture is worth a thousand words. When communicating complex topics, use images to help visual thinkers in your audience to understand the relationships and connections in your message. Even more points if you add a gif or a loom for something really complex.
Embrace progress over perfection
Do you fear putting a page out there if it’s not ready yet? I know many of you do and end up locking down a page while you draft. At Atlassian, we are encouraged to be an open company. Opening up my work in progress ensures I can get feedback early, so my team and I can be discovering and adding as we go. It also minimises the opportunity for a false start. A great way to signpost the stage of your work to level feedback is to put an info block on the top of the page that shows the “draftiness” of your page (Confluence also enables you to add page statuses now!).
So that’s it. 8 easy power-ups to boost your written comms. Now get out there and start communicating like a pro!
