From the course: Project Management Foundations: Communication

Decide what to include

From the course: Project Management Foundations: Communication

Decide what to include

“

- The Romans saw purple as a sign of wealth. So the poet Horace criticized long-winded writers by saying their snazzy wording was like purple patches sewed into their clothing. That's why this extra language is called purple prose. It sounds fancy but it's really just a patchwork of bad ideas. 2,000 years later, you'll still see a lot of purple prose. Many reports use these purple patches to hide bad ideas. Some project managers believe that if an idea is wordy, it might seem more thoughtful and acceptable to stakeholders. But most reports shouldn't hide bad ideas. Instead, you should try to focus on brevity and clarity. A good report communicates just what the reader needs to know. Here's an actual paragraph from a report that I received on a project. Because of missed opportunities to properly utilize the business-requirements-documents that business-analyst team recommends a partial-scale-back of the development team so the-timeline-is-flattened into the next quarter for budgeting and possible-schedule-realignment. Now imagine if this was reworded more concisely. To cut cost, we recommend that the team extends software development into the next quarter. This report is saying that the developers should slow down so they can save more money, which for a project manager, is a bad idea. Projects that take longer almost always go over budget. So here's some ways that you can keep your reports free of purple prose. First, always make sure that you're using the minimum language you'll need to communicate. Watch out for those ize words. We wish to utilize, we want to make sure that we prioritize, or this is how we finalize. When you add the ize, it makes the sentence more complicated. Compare this. If we prioritize this, it would lead to a better outcome, as opposed to this, this is a high priority. The ize-words only make the sentence more confusing. Also try to avoid the passive voice in your reports. The passive voice makes the object of the sentence the subject of the sentence. So here's a passive voice. The report was created by the project manager. Here's an active voice. The project manager created the report. The passive voice sounds like the idea doesn't have ownership. It's used in reports to hedge an idea. Finally, don't be afraid to use bullet points. Remember, your report should have the minimum amount of language you'll need to communicate. Bullet points are great for just that purpose. You'll find the busiest stakeholders depend on bullet points. Many projects are funded not by the report's language but by its shorter bullet points.

Contents