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.

I spoke on Fed News Radio in March about the results we were seeing. I spoke again in October at the APMP NCA (Association of Proposal Management Professionals - National Capital Area) chapter conference with updated statistics. You should grab the full slide deck here which covers examples and metrics on our findings.

Despite this, we continued to see technically competent, well-priced bids, shot in the foot due to poor language.

So in this post, I wanted to share some more real examples that will help highlight this issue. At the end of this post, you’ll see a full cliché checklist. Feel free to copy this for use on your own bids. I also wanted to outline why I think this is a difficult issue and what we can do about it. I address this towards the end of this post.

Some Examples

Let me give a couple of simple examples from one Task Order.

Example 1: The following text appeared in section 1 of a technical volume, immediately following the table of contents.

“Our team is diverse with expertise in IT support unmatched by other small business consortiums.”

Introductory sections are read first. From the reviewer’s point of view, these summary areas set the tone for the rest of the response. You are basically saying upfront; I am responding to your need by using fluffy and marketing language. I will not bore you with actual facts to back up my claims.

So in this example, we claim that our company XXX is ‘unmatched’ in some capacity.

Put yourself in the reviewer’s position. If you saw this, what would you think? It is either not credible or lacks sufficient evidence. When VisibleThread encounters a term such as unmatched, it offers this guidance in the review report. I hope you see why it makes sense.

Likely a trite claim & ‘market-ese’, remove it, otherwise state the evidence and drop the ‘unmatched’ word. It simply comes across as not being credible.

As a side note, you may wonder why expertise is also flagged above in maroon color. VisibleThread flags this as a liability issue, as it is hard to defend. From a legal standpoint, it is easy to attack should an issue arise post bid win.

Example 2: In the same Task Order, the next paragraph contained:

“We demonstrate our diversity as a team by illuminating the fact that over seventy percent of Team XXX members are socio-economically disadvantaged companies.”

This long sentence needs to go on a diet. The first half of it is pure waste; the second half masks the real information. Try this instead:

“We are diverse because seventy percent of Team XXX members are socio-economically disadvantaged companies.”

This reduces the statement from 23 to 14 words. It emphasizes the metric. If this were a genuine color team review, I would go further and suggest this rewrite:

We are diverse because:

-          seventy percent of Team XXX members are socio-economically disadvantaged companies.

-          (2^nd point that supports the claim)

-          (3^rd point that supports the claim)

Lists drive concise responses. Secondly, lists are really easy to review. Our studies in website content analysis show that lists are way more effective way to communicate. Thirdly, lists put written text on a diet. Any fear of increasing page count is more than offset by a lowered word count.

I should point out that lists have an interesting side effect; they force you to group similar concepts and reduce repetition. This is a bigger subject than just this point. I’ll pen a separate post on this topic in the next while.

All told, lists are a good thing. Don’t be afraid to put them into your summary sections and emphasize metrics & numbers. You’ll be amazed at how better the result is.

Takeaways – why is it so hard?

Amid all the scans, what stood out was a continued problem with wordy and trite language in bids. I asked myself, why is it so hard?

The issue I think comes down to these points:

1. Time Constraint: Who the heck has time to properly scrub a doc when trying to meet incredibly tight delivery deadlines?
2. Review Process too late: If your process only allows for language review at red team review phase, then it’s invariably too late to fix amid all the other conflicting challenges.
3. Editing Content is hard: In many organisations especially tecnical heavy ones, ‘fixing the language’ is considered almost easy and an afterthought. This viewpoint needs to change. Editing content out is a skilled task and takes time.
4. Lack of Automation: If you try to scrub docs manually using search in word, it’s way too manual. You need some form of automated approach, be it MS Word macros or tooling designed for the job like VisibleThread.

Poor langauge kills bids, if reviews are left too close to the end, it is extremely hard to fix. So, we need to monitor the response using automation tools and eliminate language issues much earlier in the development cycle.

The full cliché Check List

So, I did promise I would share our list of ‘baddie’ words. Below you will find the full list we check for. It continues to expand.

If you’d like to review your own proposal docs online and see how they rank, contact us or sign up for a 30 day free evaluation of VisibleThread for Docs at: http://www.visiblethread.com/products/evaluate/ Our software can save you a ton of time and dramatically improve submission quality.

let’s call time on the cliché in 2012!

Though federal agencies are often criticized for convoluted verbiage and processes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have defeated that stereotype with top rankings for the clarity of their web site content.

VisibleThread, a developer of document content analysis solutions and clear reports has released a ranking of 30 U.S. federal agency web sites for clarity of written content. The rankings coincide with the October 2011 implementation deadline of the Plain Writing Act of 2010, requiring federal agencies to use “clear Government communication that the public can understand and use.”

“Clarity in documents and websites means citizens are more likely to achieve their goals,” said Fergal McGovern, CEO of VisibleThread. “Whether you are filing a tax return or trying to understand labor rights, clear instructions mean we have a better chance of completing a task.”

He added: “If federal agencies make it easier for people to engage, it means lower cost for government due to fewer follow-up calls, letters and less time spent chasing. This index provides clear points of focus for agencies looking to improve, and that can only be a good thing.”

The so-called VisibleThread Website Index, U.S. Government ranks websites on four criteria, including readability, passive language, sentence length and word complexity. Low levels of long sentences, low levels of passive language, combined with easy to understand terminology were the winning traits found on the BLS and CDC sites.

According to VisibleThread, readability levels are impacted directly by these factors. Both the US Geological Survey (rank 4) and the National Cancer Institute (rank 5) scored well but were let down by a single metric: readability and passive language respectively.

The Federal Railroad Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation received the lowest rankings due to a high proportion of long sentences, high levels of passive language, a high degree of complex language and poor readability ratings.

Complete Agency Rankings

View original article: Aol Government

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ website scored highest in readability, transparency and clarity, while the Federal Railroad Administration’s website scored lowest, according to a new index created by Visible Thread, a provider of content analysis solutions.

The first-ever Visible Thread index ranked 30 federal agencies based on an analysis of their websites’ compliance with plain language and transparency requirements in the Plain Writing Act of 2010.

Visible Thread created an index based on four positive atrributes of plain writing: readability; use of active, rather than passive, sentence structures; avoidance of sentences that are too long; and sparing use of complex words.

“Collectively, these metrics tell us how clear or complex website content is,” said the report, which was published on Nov. 15.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked first, followed by the Centers for Disease Control &U Prevention, Bureau of the Census, US Geological Survey and National Cancer Institute.

At the bottom of the index were the Federal Railroad Adminsitration, along with the National Highway Safety Adminsitration and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

“Factors making these the worst performers are a high proportion of long sentences, high levels of passive language, a high degree of complex language and poor readability ratings,” the study said.

View original article: Federal Computer Week

Interview with Fergal McGovern, CEO VisibleThread on The Federal Drive.

Which agency has the most read-able website?

Agency websites can sometimes be overly complex with technical language, which can make it difficult for a visitor to comprehend the information the agency is trying to convey. To address this problem, the VisibleThread Website Index recently used four criteria to measure complexity and readability of government websites.

Fergal McGovern, Visible Thread’s CEO, spoke to Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Amy Morris about which agencies lead the pack and which ones have room to improve in the clarity of their websites.

The VisibleThread Website Index employed four criteria — readability, passive language, long sentences and word complexity density — to determine how complex and clear a website is.

Topping Visible Thread’s index were the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both sites had low levels of long sentences and passive language. They also used easy to understand terminology, which positively impacted readability levels. Both the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Cancer Institute also scored well, but they were marked down in readability and passive language, respectively.

At the bottom of the index were the Federal Railroad Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. A high proportion of long sentences, high levels of passive language, a high degree of complex language and poor readability ratings made these agency websites the worst performers on the index.

VisibleThread CEO Fergal McGovern is trying to clean up government language. We’re not talkin’ 4-letter words (or else the FCC would have nothing to write on its site.) Fergal says there’s plenty of passive language and wordy sentences. His software firm analyzes document content and recently studied 100 pages belonging to 30 government sites for clarity and transparency. The top three best written websites are Bureau of Labor Statistics, CDC, and Census. The bottom three were the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., and the Federal Railroad Administration. (No Department of Education. Sorry, irony.)

The top 10 best sites.

Fergal and his Baltimore team studied several readability factors including the sentence length (over 25 is a no-no), clarity of consumer info, and how many words had a high number of syllables. VisibleThread was inspired to undertake the study based on the Plain Writing Act passed last year. Agencies had until last month to make their sites more readable by consumers. Fergal says he’s working with one particular agency to help get clearer content into agency websites.

From FED TECH BISNOW, November 9, 2011

US Gov Index, Q4, 2011

Download the full report. See how US Gov sites rank for Plain Writing.

Report and Index Highlight Significant Gaps between Best and Worst U.S. Government Websites and their Compliance with the Plain Writing Act

Baltimore, MD – November 8, 2011— VisibleThread, a developer of document content analysis solutions and clear reports, today announced the availability of its first VisibleThread Website Index, U.S. Government – Q4, 2011. This ranks 30 U.S. federal agency websites for clarity of written content. The rankings coincide with the October 2011 implementation deadline of the Plain Writing Act of 2010, requiring federal agencies to use “clear Government communication that the public can understand and use”. VisibleThread will release rankings on a quarterly basis to monitor agency progress.

The VisibleThread Website Index, U.S. Government ranks websites on four criteria. (1) Readability – How readable is the content? (2) Passive Language – active language communicates clearly. What percent of sentences are passive? (3) Long Sentences – what percent of all sentences are considered too long? And (4) Word Complexity Density – complex words make Web pages hard to understand. Collectively, these metrics tell us how clear or complex website content is.

Leaders

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (rank 1) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (rank 2) are the leaders. Low levels of long sentences, low levels of passive language, combined with easy to understand terminology were the winning traits. Readability levels are impacted directly by these factors. Both the US Geological Survey (rank 4) and the National Cancer Institute (rank 5) scored well but were let down by a single metric: readability and passive language respectively. The top five ranking Websites are:

Room for Improvement

At the bottom of the index is the Federal Railroad Administration. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Transportation) and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation ranked jointly in 28^th place. Factors making these the worst performers are a high proportion of long sentences, high levels of passive language, a high degree of complex language and poor readability ratings. The bottom ranking sites are:

“There are two very important reasons that underpin the Plain Writing Act of 2010 – one impacting citizens and one the agencies,” said Fergal McGovern, CEO of VisibleThread. “Clarity in documents and websites means citizens are more likely to achieve their goals. Whether you are filing a tax return or trying to understand labor rights, clear instructions mean we have a better chance of completing a task. When people know what the government asks of them, there’s a better chance they’ll comply. Secondly, if federal agencies make it easier for people to engage, it means lower cost for government due to fewer follow-up calls, letters and less time spent chasing. This index provides clear points of focus for agencies looking to improve, and that can only be a good thing.”

Complete Agency Rankings

About VisibleThread

VisibleThread provides document content analysis software solutions and Website reports. The company flags poor quality and complex language for documents and Websites to eliminate tedious manual review cycles, saving organizations time and cost. VisibleThread solutions and reports allow customers to scan documents and Websites in minutes, identify risky and complex language with objective metrics and benchmark Websites against sector peers. For proposal managers, government agencies and IT delivery teams VisibleThread solutions increase the likelihood of winning bids, drive plain language audits and make review teams 40 percent more efficient. For more information, visit www.visiblethread.com

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To obtain a copy of the complete report go to: www.visiblethread.com or mail: gov-index@visiblethread.com

For media inquiries contact: Evan Weisel Welz & Weisel Communications for VisibleThread P: 703-218-3555 C: 703-628-5754 evan@w2comm.com

So, last week, on October 3^rd 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.

Why the Act?

Let’s remind ourselves why congressman Braley sponsored this act and why president Obama signed it.

Reason 1 - Improve Customer Engagement: Clarity in documents and websites means citizens are more likely to achieve their goals. Whether you are filing a tax return or trying to understanding labor rights; clear instructions mean we have a higher chance of completing an action.

Reason 2 - Reduce Cost: If the Feds can make it easier for people to engage, it means lower cost. It means lower cost for government due to less follow-up calls, letters and less time spent chasing. It cuts down on possible litigation due to misunderstood terms and conditions.

Plain Language is the mechanism that drives clarity for websites and documents.

The scanned results

Here are just two of the websites that we scanned:

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (www.pbgc.gov) & Federal Highway Administration (www.fhwa.dot.gov). The metrics:

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation scored a little over 20% when measured for long sentences. Long sentences exceed 25 words. In the context of web communications, this score is not good. The Fed Highway Administration wasn’t far behind at close to 18%. Equally, passive density was too high for the sites. Note that we did limit the scan to the first 100 pages of content, in both cases.

Hidden in the weeds - badness

One of the specific areas that caught our attention was the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section of the pension site at: http://www.pbgc.gov/about/faq.html

Aside from the usage of an acronym ‘FAQ’ which is likely unfamiliar to the target demographic (i.e. aged persons), we found many issues with the content itself.

Now, you should note that the FAQ pages are reasonably well laid out and clear. So, the web design guys have done pretty well. The real issues lie in the content under the expandable answers. Under here, lurks some really bad stuff that we picked up in the scan. It’s the proverbial ‘under the rug’ area of any website.

For instance, at: http://www.pbgc.gov/about/faq/pg/general-faqs-about-pbgc.html , in answer to the very first question: ‘What is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)?’ we get this:

A: PBGC is a federal agency created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to protect pension benefits in private-sector traditional pension plans known as defined benefit plans. If your plan ends (this is called “plan termination”) without sufficient money to pay all benefits, PBGC’s insurance program will pay you the benefit provided by your pension plan up to the limits set by law. (Most people receive the full benefit they had earned before the plan terminated.) Our financing comes from insurance premiums paid by companies whose plans we protect, from our investments, from the assets of pension plans that we take over as trustee, and from recoveries from the companies formerly responsible for the plans, but not from taxes. Your plan is insured even if your employer fails to pay the required premiums.

Each long sentence is highlighted in light blue. Maroon highlights passive language.

So, let’s assume we understand the purpose of the agency, the next question ups the ante. In answer to ‘What can PBGC tell me about my pension?’ we have:

A: If you’re a participant in a pension plan that PBGC insures but that has not yet been taken over (“trusteed”), PBGC generally will have no information specifically about you, your plan, or your benefits under that plan. PBGC gathers this information only after PBGC trustees the plan. This means you’ll find only general information below about our insurance programs and how they operate, including our guarantees. If PBGC has trusteed your pension plan, we’ll have only limited information about your plan and your benefits until we’ve had time to obtain and review your plan’s records-typically after several months.

The rest of this area of the website has equally lengthy and complex language. Clearly, not achieving the aim of the Plain Writing act.

Long Sentences and Passive Voice, why important?

VisibleThread analyses websites and documents for a number of metrics. While other metrics (complex density, hidden verbs, readability) are useful; long and passive sentences are the ‘low hanging fruit’ of the Plain Language world. If all you do today, is just cut your long sentences down and write in active voice, clarity will immediately improve.

To re-iterate, two of the easiest ways you can reduce complexity & introduce clarity are:

1. Split long sentences and
2. Convert passive into active voice.

If you want more on this, read this excellent piece from the University of Wisconsin on passive voice. Then check out how putting wordy sentences on a diet helps too.

Easy Steps to simplify your website content

What simple steps can you take to improve website quality?

1. Scan for and eliminate Long sentences: Aside from being harder to interpret, long sentences often mask several different information concepts. They are thus harder to understand. If you split the sentence, it is an excellent first step to achieve clarity. For websites, where readers are actually visually skimming, long sentences are especially inappropriate.

1. Rewrite passive with a verb driven approach: Active (verb preceding noun) rather than passive (subject preceding verb) language makes for clearer requirements. It forces an explicit reference to the ‘actor’. The actor is the person or entity responsible for performing the action. This reduces ambiguity and improves likelihood your customers will complete an action.

Summary Takeaways

-          One year on, some agencies are still falling short of complying with the Plain Writing act.

-          We scanned several agency websites with VisibleThread and found some poor examples.

-          If you eliminate long sentences & passive language, clarity will improve.

Join us at our booth to learn first hand how leading government contractors are using the company’s software to scan RFP response docs in minutes. The result: dramatic time savings and winning bids.

Drop by our stand and we’ll show you some sample RFP responses and how they hide latent language risk. We’ll crunch some RFPs through VisibleThread on the spot for you.

CEO to speak on “Which Words Kill Your Best Proposal?”

In addition, our CEO, Fergal McGovern, will present a session in the ‘technical skills’ track titled: “Which Words Kill Your Best Proposal?”

This session will provide government and commercial attendees real world Insights into proposal language that weakens credibility and damages your response.

Fergal will share examples of poor proposal language seen in 5 different bids. Based on his work to date, he will also share techniques for ensuring consistent ‘win themes’ are maintained throughout a proposal response.

Key topics include:

• Credibility: Non-committal language, trite statements and negative sentiment
• Liability: Legal implications and over-commitment in statements
• Deliverability: Non-verifiable statements
• Plain Language: The value of tight sentence length

WHERE:

Waterford at Springfield, 6715 Commerce Street, Springfield, VA 22150

TO REGISTER:

http://www.apmpnca.org/registration-for-mid-atlantic-proposal-conference-a-expo/

Baltimore, MD—September 27, 2011— VisibleThread, the NO BAD LANGUAGE company, today announced that company founder and CEO Fergal McGovern will speak at the upcoming National Capital Area (NCA) Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) Conference & Expo taking place on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 7:30 AM - 6:00 PM.

Mr. McGovern’s session “Which Words Kill Your Best Proposal?” takes place from 3:20 – 4:20 p.m.

In addition, conference attendees are invited to join VisibleThread at its booth to meet with company experts. Attendees can learn more about how leading government contractors are using the company’s software to scan RFP responses and ensure winning bids.

WHAT:

“Which Words Kill Your Best Proposal?” Weak language and clichés can be the death knell for any proposal. Bid and proposal teams need to be aware of language that weakens credibility, raises legal questions or affects the solution delivery. In this session, Mr. McGovern will share examples of poor proposal language seen in 5 different bids. Based on his work to date, he will also share techniques for ensuring consistent ‘win themes’ are maintained throughout a proposal response.

Key topics include:

• Credibility: Non-committal language, trite statements and negative sentiment
• Liability: Legal implications and over-commitment in statements
• Deliverability: Non-verifiable statements
• Plain Language: The value of tight sentence length

WHO:

During 2011, Fergal McGovern has been focused on fighting ‘BAD LANGUAGE’, helping government integrators cleanse and ‘de-risk’ proposal response documentation.  Using software he originally created for identifying risk in IT specifications, he is making the tedious quality review tasks more automated.

Mr. McGovern’s original background is large scale IT systems development. The solutions for automated document scanning created by his company VisibleThread are increasingly in use for red flagging bid responses, ‘de-risking’ contracts, high lighting compliance issues, aiding review teams and identifying bid loss characteristics.

View Fergal’s LinkedIn profile here: www.linkedin.com/in/fergalmcgovern

WHEN:

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 from 3:20 – 4:20 p.m.

WHERE:

Waterford at Springfield, 6715 Commerce Street, Springfield, VA 22150

TO REGISTER:

http://www.apmpnca.org/registration-for-mid-atlantic-proposal-conference-a-expo/

ABOUT VISIBLETHREAD

VisibleThread develops document content analysis software that identifies defects and streamlines document compliance. The company’s analysis software enables users to scan MS Office and PDF docs for liability concerns, automatically create compliance documents, coordinate and track changes from multiple stakeholders, and provide oversight throughout proposal development and IT delivery projects.

Today the company offers VisibleThread for contract specialists, capture managers, proposal response teams, legal reviewers and IT development teams. The identification of compliance, legal, and delivery concerns through automated scans enables proposal response teams to improve efficiency and increase their probability of winning government and commercial contracts. For more information, visit www.visiblethread.com

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Media Contact Evan Weisel

Welz & Weisel Communications P: 703-218-3555

evan@w2comm.com

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.

How does Plain Language analysis help?

For starters, let’s set some context on Plain Language. Plain Language (sometimes called Plain Writing) is all about clear, concise communication. If you want to see how and why the US government is sponsoring plain language, check here.

Let me first give a non-IT related before and after example from http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/before_after/index.cfm :

“When the process of freeing a vehicle that has been stuck results in ruts or holes, the operator will fill the rut or hole created by such activity before removing the vehicle from the immediate area.”

vs

“If you make a hole while freeing a stuck vehicle, you must fill the hole before you drive away.”

This example shows two things; (1) a long complicated sentence and (2) passive language. You can see the passive highlighted in maroon. Both sentences attempt to communicate the exact same thing. You be the judge of which is clearer.

Are you agile or waterfall? Does it matter?

You may be capturing your initial requirements using the ‘big fat doc’ approach or you may capture them as stories in a 100% agile environment. Either way, if you apply Plain Language checks, quality will improve.

Since we work with a good number of corporates who still use BRDs (Business Requirements Definition), I will show examples and analysis from BRDs but all of the principles of plain language apply equally to requirements captured as part of an agile approach.

The value of identifying long Sentences

Long sentences often mask multiple requirements and can often contain multiple meanings & ambiguity. We categorise them as sentences in excess of 25 words.

Here is an example of a long sentence in a recent BRD for a financial institution:

“Prices received electronically daily from the Fund Accountant via FTP and email, except for the Growth Stock Fund, which prices monthly and for the bi-monthly price receipt for Fixed Income  funds”

So, here are the immediate issues:

1. Multiple Requirements: There are actually 3 rules embedded in this sentence. A rule pertaining to ‘general pricing’, a rule pertaining to the ‘Growth Stock Fund’ and rules for ‘Fixed Income Funds’
2. Ambiguity: Is bi-monthly, once every two months or twice a month?
3. Ambiguity: Is daily business day only?
4. Ambiguity: Are Growth Stock Funds and Fixed Income funds also received electronically? Or is the ‘except’ clause inclusive of the receipt mechanism?

So scanning for long sentences tends to reveal multiple different requirements and exceptional scenarios. It often uncovers significant degrees of looseness. All of this leads to delivery risk and poor project estimatation.

What is Passive Language and why it matters?

It is common to find that people are unsure what passive language is. Let me give a simple example first:

“Quality is monitored” vs. “We monitor quality”

Notice that the first version contains ‘is monitored’. It does not specify the actor, i.e. who or what is responsible for monitoring. The formal definition of passive language is a statement where the noun precedes the verb. In our example, ‘quality’ is the noun, with ‘is monitored’ coming second, masking the active form ‘to monitor’.

Passive language also allows you omit specifying the person or entity responsible for performing the verb.

For IT systems, where completeness of specification is important, that omission can lead to guesswork and misinterpretation by developers. If you convert passive into active language, it will often reveal missing actors and incomplete specifications.

Omitting the actor also means less testable requirements. Agile stories and use cases by their nature emphasize the active form, which is why they are very effective capture mechanisms. On the other hand, BAs can tend to write general business & technical requirements in the passive voice.

Here is just one example from a real IT program spec in a BRD (Business Requirements Definition):

“Those transactions/fields that the user is authorized to input will be submitted to ZHG on the mainframe.”

Immediate issues:

1. Missing actor. Who or what authorizes?
2. Who or what submits to ZHG (renamed from the real system)?
3. We need an exact set of conditions that allow each step to occur. This statement actually contains two distinct rules. It would be better to split them as two separate statements (or steps) and link them in a flow or story.

Further, the following set of questions pop out:

4. Are transactions and fields using different permissions?
5. What are the transactions?
6. What are the fields?

While points 4 thru 6 are not explicitly associated with passive analysis, this kind of looseness is often spotted in the vicinity where passive language is present.

When we scanned the entire doc, it showed that 18.75% of all sentences in the BRD contained passive language.

So reviewing just for passive language often uncovers significant degrees of looseness and risk and the amount of passive language present increases risk.

Simple Steps to reduce Risk

What simple steps can you take to improve quality?

1. Scan for and eliminate Long sentences: Aside from being harder to interpret, long sentences often mask several different requirements. They are thus hard to track and estimate for. Splitting up the sentence is a first step.

1. Rewrite passive with a verb driven approach: Active (verb preceding noun) rather than passive (noun preceding verb) language makes for clearer requirements. It forces an explicit reference to the ‘actor’. The actor is the person or entity responsible for performing the action. From an IT standpoint, this reduces ambiguity and yields much more testable requirements.

Summary Takeaways

-          Plain Language can uncover high risk in your requirements.

-          Long sentences and passive language; these are your enemy.

-          Eliminate passive language and long sentences from your IT requirements to reduce risk.