Writing is the world's greatest invention, period. You listed a few stories where groups of people struggled to get to agreement until everything was clarified in writing. I've even seen this happen with 1:1's! Especially when starting to work with people from other teams for the first time. Assumptions and terminology are different, just like different dialects of the same language.
One other thing I'd like to mention is the form of the writing. Essays, bullet points, and tables (matrices) all serve different purposes.
Great post. Journaing decisions is a great way to not just to be aligned but also to more accurately assess quality of thinking subsequently once the outcome unfolds and not let hindsight bias creep in.
"Write it down" for collaboration. Writing it down helps collaborate, share ideas as well. As you mentioned, it brings clarity and when there are several people collaborating, having all the thoughts on paper is eye-opening.
100%!
'Writing is thinking' and 'thinking out loud' were the first tips I usually gave when I coach junior PMs. And I wish I got this advice when I started.
I asked everyone on my team to improve communication skills throughout their career including myself :)
Writing is the world's greatest invention, period. You listed a few stories where groups of people struggled to get to agreement until everything was clarified in writing. I've even seen this happen with 1:1's! Especially when starting to work with people from other teams for the first time. Assumptions and terminology are different, just like different dialects of the same language.
One other thing I'd like to mention is the form of the writing. Essays, bullet points, and tables (matrices) all serve different purposes.
This comment was NOT written by ChatGPT. :)
I fully agree! Writing forces you to think clearly. Writing clearly shows any faults and white spaces in your thinking.
I wrote a similar piece myself a while back: https://www.leadinginproduct.com/p/why-writing-is-superior
Great post. Journaing decisions is a great way to not just to be aligned but also to more accurately assess quality of thinking subsequently once the outcome unfolds and not let hindsight bias creep in.
"Write it down" for collaboration. Writing it down helps collaborate, share ideas as well. As you mentioned, it brings clarity and when there are several people collaborating, having all the thoughts on paper is eye-opening.