Imagine you are in a meeting listening to the person presenting talking through all the minute detail of a topic you are just being introduced to. As you’re listening to this explanation your eyes glaze over and your brain turns off.
Why is this the case? There is often little structure in the explanation. The explanation is too complicated. The information doesn’t relate to what I need.
How can we be more efficient when sharing information and getting others up to speed on new tasks/systems? Know the audience Who are you sharing the information with? Why do they need to know what you’re sharing? How will they use the information being shared?
Make sure the audience is fully in mind and tailor the information sharing to the person in mind.
Have a structure
Spend a little time before to define the structure of the information transfer. Answer these questions:
- What do they need to know?
- Why do they need to know it?
- In what context does this information matter?
- What order do they need to know things?
Order is important
Information is like lego. The blocks on the bottom need to be placed before you can put the blocks on the top.
- Find information dependency
Document the basics
Make sure the structure mentioned is documented even if they are just links of where to find more information.
Don’t ad-lib
The audience doesn’t need to know how smart you are or the exact details of how you figured out how something works. Only provide information required and requested.
Keep it simple
Make the explanations as simple as possible. Remove as many assumptions as possible. Imagine you’re explaining it to your grandmother. How would it make sense to her?
Ask questions
Get the other party involved and engaged. Ask them questions to make sure they understand what you feel they need to understand.