When you have to make a document, whether a proposal, an offer or a presentation, you often need contributions from colleagues or partners. But even if you are the sole author, follow these steps:
- Define the objective: what is the message you want to get across?
- Think of the audience: to whom are you delivering the message?
- Create a Table of Contents (ToC): how to structure the message? The ToC is the skeleton of your story. And create headings in the ToC that reflect what you want to get across and that appeal to the brains and the heart of the audience.
- Define the style of the document: formal or informal, commercial or technical, textual or graphical, and make sure the style relates to the objective and the audience.
- Create a Storyboard that adds some flesh to the skeleton: add outlines of the content, written or visualized in the proper style, to the headings. It doesn’t need to be perfect (yet), only clear and instructive!
- Define the maximum number of pages per heading and make sure your document does not exceed 15 pages (or slides). Nobody will read any document beyond 15 pages!
- If you really need more pages, create appendices. And create headings for the appendices in such a manner that any reader can immediately discover what appendices to read and what appendices to skip.
- Also create Storyboards for the appendices: add outlines of content.
- Choose a document template that reflects the style of the document.
- Enter the Table of Contents and the Storyboard in the template. You’ve now made a document in the appropriate style, with the appropriate headings and an outline per heading.
- Write the Introduction that delivers the message you want to get across in the style that appeals to the audience and briefly introduce the structure of the document. And write the Conclusions that you want to arrive at, again delivering the message you want to get across in the style that suits the audience.
- Check your Introduction and Conclusion: have you said it as concise and clear as possible?
- Have your document assessed by somebody that knows and understands both the objective and the audience, if you haven’t done this earlier.
- Instruct your co-authors that one picture may say more than a thousand words but be sure to have the right type of pictures.
When more authors are to contribute to the document, they can now understand what is expected from them. But have only one editor who ‘owns’ the document and who will make sure that all its content is aiming to deliver exactly the right message to the specific audience in the chosen style.
