The IT Crowd stance on writing advice documents

The IT crowd guide to …

Advice Documents

Meet “Moss”

Hello!

He’s very smart

A real wizzkid one would say

Gosh… Now you gonnamake me blush!

But do you know his boss?

Meet “Jen”

Ohh, hi…

She’s good with numbers

Thank you!

But does not understand anything about the

“technical mumbo jumbo”…

I really don’t…

And her boss?

Doesn’t even care about IT…

I really don’t…

Yet Moss has encountered some “issues”…

Help! Exclamation mark!

So he does the obvious thing…

We need more memory!

Memo… what?

Memory! We need more memory, Jen!

Can’t we do without?

Off course not! And we

need it fast!

How fast?

Like yesterday…

duh!

How much does it cost?

How should I know?

You do the numbers!

This conversation isn’t going well…

So let’s reboot this, yeah?

What about going for version 2.0?

Let us help out our friend Mosson this one…

What does Jen want?

Just let me facebook?

Nice try Jen, we won’t be doing that…

Jen wants…

Brief summary of the issue at hand

Be assured that the issue will not return.

And her boss?

He wants to know how much it’s going to cost…

And why he should care about this issue?

Crap…That’s something

else then I had in mind!?!

Though, Jen will also want the summary to be backed by technical details…

But she does not understand

… ANY … of it !?!

True… But she will validate itwith other technical guys.

With Roy?

Yeah, maybe with Roy.

Or a consultant?

Hmm…How do I get about it then?

Let’s use the following skeleton…

The document should startof with the summary

So I shouldwrite

a summary …

of somethingI haven’t written

yet…

Good comment. Though it’s the first chapter in the document.

It will be the last thing you write…

Why not put it at the

end then?

No no no… Because Jen has a busy agenda and

doesn’t need all the nitty gritty details.

A summary at the beginning gives her the information

she needs to make a decision.

Write a summary of maximum one page covering everything in a nutshell

and in a language she can understand.

This summary be the first thingshe encounters. No need to lose half an hour trying to find it at the back.

So I don’tmention

“memory”?

Try to avoid technical terms… Translate them into the value they

deliver towards the business.

Euh…

You need the memory tomake the system go faster, right?

Off course silly!

Then say it like that!

Sounds fair!

And thenI write the

technical stuff?

In the second chapter …

Second? How many are there going to

be?!?

Five

Pffff…

Relax… stay calm and bare with!

OK!

Chapter TwoContext

Provide some details about the past…Often there have been events

in the past that relate to this issue.

Maybe there are certain decisions fromthe past, principles, contraints, …

culture things, that may affect this issue.

Sounds reasonable

Chapter ThreeCurrent Situation

Explain the current situation.

Duh!

No really. Explain it… Throw in diagrams, numbers, statistics, …

to show an insight into the issue.

I might have forgotten those

in the past…

You are not alone!

Chapter FourIdeal Situation

Now describe the end goal! What point do you want to achieve.

That’s the “advice”!

A lot of peopleonly see this chapter as “advice”

and forget the other four chapters.

Like I just did…

Indeed. But don’t feel bad… Now you know!

Chapter FiveRoad to … heaven

We know our starting point …The current situation

And we knowwhere we want

to be!

So now we can map the route between those two points…

Should I take the context

into account?

Indeed! Some contraints might prove to bespeed bumps on your road to heaven.

So…

1Management

Summary

2Context

3Current Situation

4Ideal Situation

5Road to …

Very well! You have been paying attention.

Thank you.I have!

Now let’s get started!

Jen, here is the advice

document

on the speed of the ordering

system.

Thank you Moss

Seems logical

Roy, can you check

…

the technicalcontent of this

advice document?

Sure

Seems logical

It’s correct, Jen!

Thank you Roy

Sir, you know everyone

is complainingabout …

the orderingsystem.

This is the solution!

Will it bepermanentlyfixed then?

Yes!

Great job Moss!We got the budget.

For the memory?

Memo…what?!?

Management Summary

Context

Current Situation

Ideal Situation

Road to Heaven

A quick recap

Credits

The “IT Crowd” is intellectual property

of “Channel 4”

Creator

Karim Vaes

www.kvaes.be