Amazon Narrative
https://www.inc.com/carmine-gallo/jeff-bezos-bans-powerpoint-in-meetings-his-replacement-is-brilliant.html Can anyone from Amazon point me to a example of how you guys write this?
Tldr. At least with powerpoints I can pretend to listen and do actually useful things while people go on ego trips.
Working docs are dumb and filled with ret@rded bs. At least with ppt it was easier to pay attention
Have you even seen one of these docs?
MSFT selling ppts here. Lol. Yes, docs written by MSFT like guys could be filled with BS and doc reviews allow for people like me to call out that BS. How can you do the same in a PPT in which everything is generally BS? It works the other way round where you can only say he/she presented well and not be critical on the content. To be fair, PPTs help with communicating high level ideas (wireframes) and concepts in a relatively quick turnaround time but IMO, is not an effective mechanism to get to critique and discuss the most important details. I'll leave the benefits of doc writing and reviews for others to mention.
Old news so exciting
Usually they’re: - 6 pages (if you need more room you make appendices and put less important stuff there. Your 6 main pages need to tell a story and be a compelling narrative.) - Have a narrative structure. A problem statement. A bold vision for the future of your business, a new business/product, or amazon as a whole. Supporting evidence for why you think this will work. What might cause it to fail. Etc - The higher you go, the less fluff and more brutal honesty is expected. Intentionally Hiding unflattering details or data will get you crucified. I’ve seen VPs instantly end a meeting with the ask to “rewrite a doc and schedule another meeting ” for things like this. - that bullshit salesman sentence you hid among 5 high quality pages of writing? Yeah someone in the room is going to find it. Don’t even try - Sr managers and directors take this process incredibly seriously. I have seen L8s rewrite a single paragraph like 50 times in two weeks. You need to be blunt and straightforward to get the absolute maximum value out of every sentence. The 6 pages is a pretty hard number.
Thanks for all responses specially from Amazon folks. Still looking for a direct example if available, would be so helpful for others to read.
Search for Amazon PRFAQ docs. Also referred to as Working Backwards docs.