In an era of talking, writing can be a subversive act.
Software is intangible. Which means that software companies are largely intangible. It follows that describing things that happen in software companies in intangible ways is ... not good.
In our WFH / hybrid world our verbal communication options are effectively limitless. We've got tools to talk by phone, app, on screen, with a whiteboard as a backdrop or even occasionaly, in person. Any way that you want to talk? You can talk. It's a verbal attention blitz from the minute we log in to "the office", to the minute we log out (if we log out).
do you have a minute to talk?
The only kind of writing that we do anymore is just a way to find time to ... talk. We've created so many tools for talking that WRITING has become the exception.
While this might be fine in a more concrete businesses - retail where you can see the store, or manufacturing where you can walk the factory floor - software is intangible. To describe it is to see it. The words are the thing.
Anyone who has been in the software business long enough will tell you:
we don't need more code, we need more clarity
Big, vague conversations beget unreliable and chaotic code ... creating messy products which produce mediocre results. Contrary to popular belief, the amount of and the speed in which software developers work is typically NOT the bottleneck. The problem is what they prioritize working on - and that is where writing comes in.
The goal in software is to make the most money with the least code.
In today's work culture that prioritizes talking over writing, words on a page become a subversive act. The ultimate counter culture.
If you are PM, this is your hill to climb. Your mission is to make the words on the page make sense. To read, and re-read them, and make them better. Always tweaking and iterating. Remove what is not needed and only sparingly add. When in doubt? Write it out. (AI suggested that little rhymey phrase)
The side benefit of this approach is that if you "manage by reviewing the WORDS", you will radically speed up your company. Your company will not only get better, it will get faster.
"Showing your work" is something we all had to do in school, and somehow this got lost in the workplace. I chalk it up to the boomer belief that "AS AN EXECUTIVE" you are supposed to "BE MORE STRATEGIC" as you move up through the ranks. Which means that you are not supposed to be "IN THE DETAILS."
The thing is - expecting and reviewing written work skips that middle step - it eliminates the meta-conversation about the work. It takes the bureaucratic overhead of "status updates" out of the equation.
"Just share what you've written"
There's no need to give status updates about a plan to write, or why something wasn't written. What was written, was written. And tomorrow is a new day. You have another opportunity to write more. The writing itself is the update, the summary, and the status all in one.
Why is this faster? Because you can write a little bit, every day. If you believe that excellence happens now, right now, then there is no reason to wait.
Can't write 50 pages? Great, write 5.
Can't write 5 pages? Great, write 1.
Can't write 1 page? Great, write 1 sentence.
Just start and then keep going.
And if you want to layer in talking around writing? That's fine. But the writing is the thing. The writing is the work, not the talking. The talking is only there to make the writing better.
>>jg - 3/11/25 - bellemonti.com