How to Create Clear Documentation

Hate how boring and time-consuming documentation feels? Yeah, same. But here’s the thing: the more you avoid it, the more you hurt your future self and miss opportunities to showcase your skills properly. So if you want to make documentation less painful (and actually useful), here are 6 tips I use with my clients to make it faster, clearer, and more impactful: 1. Start with an overview What’s the purpose of your project? What problem did it solve? Just 3–4 lines to set the stage. Make it easy for anyone to understand why it matters. 2. Walk through your process Break down the steps: How did you collect the data? How did you clean, analyze, or model it? What tools or methods did you use? This shows how you think and how you solve real-world problems. 3. Add visuals A clean chart > a wall of text. Use graphs, screenshots, and diagrams to bring your work to life. (And bonus: you’ll understand it faster when you come back later.) 4. Show your problem-solving What roadblocks did you hit? How did you fix them? Don’t hide your struggles, highlight them. This is where your value really shines. 5. Summarize your results What did you find? Why does it matter? What’s next? Answer these three questions clearly and your audience will instantly get the impact of your work. 6.  Use a structure that makes sense Try this flow: Introduction → Objectives → Methods → Results → Conclusion → Future Work Simple. Clean. Effective. P.S: After every milestone, take 5 minutes to update your notes, screenshots, or results. Turn it into a habit. ➕ Follow Jaret André for more data job search, and portfolio tips 🔔 Hit the bell icon to get strategies that actually move the needle.

Documentation protects you… unless it buries your point. Many years ago, I wrote the most detailed audit report of my life. We’re talking 40 pages 🤦🏽♂️ → Charts. → Narratives. → Appendices. → Footnotes. It was bulletproof. At least, I thought so. I handed it to the client expecting appreciation. What I got? “Can you just tell us what you want us to do?” They didn’t care about the 18 pages of background. They didn’t want the full history of the control environment. They wanted direction. Clarity. Action. That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t writing for them. I was writing for me. → To protect myself. → To prove I did the work. → To make it look complete. But complete ≠ compelling. Documentation only matters if someone reads it. Here’s what I learned the hard way. People won't: • Act on what they don’t understand. • Sift through clutter to find the message. • Thank you for being thorough if they feel overwhelmed. So I started writing differently. → Clearer summaries → Shorter sections → Visuals that guide, not distract → And I stopped trying to include 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨—        only what mattered Because when your business writing reads like a novel, nobody finishes it. But when it reads like a conversation? → People engage. → They listen. → They act. Struggling to balance clarity with completeness? Our trainings help you communicate in a way that gets results. P.S. Ever write a report so long even 𝘺𝘰𝘶 didn’t finish it?

How do you write good business documents? Here is a technique that works for me. It is well known that Amazon has a document-centric culture, where most group meetings begin by quietly reading a document, followed by an in-depth discussion. This can seem strange when you are accustomed to PowerPoint presentations. However, I have become a strong proponent of this approach, and will now ask for a written document on every complex topic. With PowerPoint, weak ideas can be hidden behind a persuasive speech or flashy slides. Written documents remove these distractions and enable everyone to focus on the idea itself. The document should include all supporting data, and can be revisited in future to refresh on what was agreed. Written documents are also a gift for introverts like myself, who may otherwise struggle to influence in large groups. Despite these benefits, it is still possible for great ideas to be obscured by poorly written documents, and poor ideas to be presented in great documents. The key is to write clear documents, so the ideas (good or bad) can be properly assessed. The best advice that I have for writing clear documents is simply to plan the content of the document fully before writing anything. When I am unsatisfied with my own documents it is generally because I was unclear on what I wanted to say. By contrast, when I am happy with a document it is because I was very clear on what I wanted to say, and the document just wrote itself. The worst way to write a document is simply to begin typing without a plan. The resulting document will be muddled and inconsistent, as you form your opinions directly in the prose. I have heard people say that the act of writing itself forces them to clarify their ideas. If this is the case for you, the document should be rewritten once your ideas are clear. It is helpful to divide the effort of writing a document into “thinking time” followed by “writing time”. Thinking time is where the key arguments are identified, and the document structure is planned. It is very tempting, particularly under time pressure, to jump straight to the writing time. This means the thinking will occur while the document is being written, and will likely force many rewrites and revisions. Instead, the majority of the effort should be invested in thinking time before writing begins. When your ideas are clearly formed the writing will flow effortlessly and the document will be clearly structured. Finally, thinking time does not need to happen in-front of a computer. I frequently plan my document while I am in the shower, or out for a walk! The writing can then begin when I reach my desk. Let me know if there are writing techniques that work for you? [Note that the above is entirely my own opinion, and in no way represents the views of Amazon] #writing #business #clarity