In a recent conversation with a friend, I realized that there’s a name for the way I work: agile writing. Quite unintentionally, I’ve developed a writing style that mirrors agile software development: create a preliminary draft and get feedback early and often for quick delivery of a quality product that meets customer goals.
Clients often give me the rough outline of what they want. If I followed that outline to the letter and submitted a final draft based on that information, odds are good that the result would be nothing close to what they really need. This isn’t the fault of the client. Creating something from nothing is difficult. They often have a rough idea of the points they want to hit, but no real sense of how to best approach the project, so they give a random set of talking points and hope that you can clarify things for them. As one client once told me, “if I knew exactly what I wanted, I would have written it myself.” Add in a list of ever-changing objectives and you have a recipe for disaster.
It seems to be our nature, as human beings, to be much better at editing than creating. This goes beyond writing. For example, most people can’t walk into a newly-constructed house with beige walls and carpets and envision color on the walls, or furniture that complements the room. However, the same people could walk into a fully-decorated model home and tell you what they like and don’t like in terms of color and feel.
Let’s take a recent white paper project as an example. I didn’t have a lot to work with, just some general industry knowledge, an outline and the Internet. I submitted a rough draft as quickly as possible to ensure that I was on the right path and to give the client an opportunity to adjust on the fly. Feedback included suggestions about pending legislation that could add some color to an existing section, an entirely new section that gave the paper a different focus, and an idea for a graphic that explained a concept more clearly than words ever could.
Working this way, the paper found its groove in a matter of days and was able to be delivered early and under budget. Had I taken the project to completion before review, the edits would have been time consuming and difficult, and there’s a good chance that the end result might not have quite met the client’s needs.
Never underestimate the value of early and often communication with your clients. Agility, flexibility and speed are powerful assets in a competitive economy.