Which words are (still) killing your best proposals? - December 29th, 2011, by Fergal
TweetWinning bids contain clear, concise language. They are easy to review, they are credible. Credibility comes in many forms. One of the easiest ways to sabotage an otherwise strong bid is to use wordy language, peppered with clichés and trite phrases.
During 2011, we used VisibleThread to scan more than 120 separate bids (yes, we’ve been counting). The scanned bids included RFPs (Request for Proposal), Task Orders and commercial RFIs (Request for Information). We scanned bid responses from some of the largest integrators around the beltway, and smaller 8A companies too. (more…)
Comments (2)One year on – Plain Language Issues persist in Gov. websites despite Plain Writing Act - October 10th, 2011, by Fergal
TweetThis week marks the first anniversary of the US Plain Writing Act on October 13th. The act is all about clear and transparent communications. Given the anniversary, it’s useful to check how agency websites are complying.
So, last week, on October 3rd we scanned 31 federal agency websites with VisibleThread. The scans revealed some agencies doing really well, others remain challenged.
We plan to publish the full results soon. I wanted to share in this blog post some initial findings. These are items that caught our eye as we reviewed the scans. We hope these will be helpful for US federal agencies looking to comply with the Plain Writing act of 2010. (more…)
Comments OffHow Plain Language helps you flush out risky IT docs. - August 23rd, 2011, by Fergal
TweetI have blogged recently about Plain Language here. This was in the context of poor quality RFP and bid response docs. The basic premise: if you apply some basic Plain Language checks to your writing, quality will increase.
In this post, I wanted to look at the IT space to see how we can improve documented requirements.
As background, people like Tom and Kai Gilb argue for improving IT requirements quality by rewriting them in a notation (Planguage) that is measurable and testable. This is really great if your team is able and willing to adopt that approach. In most business organisations however, it is a bridge too far. This is because BAs (Business Analysts) are not conditioned to translating informal English into mathematical statements.
Here I argue for a less radical and more digestible alternative; running a basic plain language check. This leads to dramatically improved requirements quality. More importantly, it is very workable in pretty much all organisations. (more…)
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