Ode to Doc Reads
Leonardo Quattrucci
Helping startups, governments and business put technology to public service | Advisor, Lecturer, Investor | Ex Amazon Web Services | Ex European Commission
In praise of the silent and synchronous review of plain and concise prose, leading to wise and deliberate decisions.
One of the practices I miss the most about Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the Doc Read. I miss it so much that I wrote a poem in praise of this decision-making technique.
What is a Doc Read?
A Doc Read is a mechanism for decision-making born at Amazon. It consists of the review of a “narrative†or “docâ€, which is at most six pages long - excluding appendices.
The doc is presented by the owner at the time of the Doc Read. This means that reviewers require no previous preparation. When the Doc Read begins, participants read the narrative in silence for the required time, generally between 15-30 minutes. When readers have finished the review, they discuss the document from general to specific feedback. The owner of the doc is responsible for integrating the feedback and taking the next steps.
What are the benefits of Doc Reads?
I enjoyed first hand the benefits of this practice, during my time at Amazon Web Services. Its power is even more evident now that I no longer work there and interact with a variety of other decision-making models. In my experience, the primary benefits of Doc Reads are.
- Clear writing = clear thinking. Writing forces the organisation of thoughts into logical and coherent structure. Gaps in critical thinking or data are easier spotted on the page. Writing puts the onus of clarity on the author, while PowerPoints put the responsibility to understand on the audience. In addition, PowerPoints incentivise the presenter to impress. This often leads to over-simplifying complexity...
Thanks Leonardo Quattrucci - My reflections: https://medium.com/data-stewards-network/from-data-to-decision-intelligence-the-potential-of-decision-accelerator-labs-33f4060734a8 (Also: do you have an example of a Doc Read?)
Global Communications & Public Affairs Manager at Generation | Global Shaper at WEF | AI & Future of Work Speaker | Career Coach
11 个月Happy to share my thoughts on the topic: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/writing-think-better-david-timis-z5gre?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android&utm_campaign=share_via
Excellent post on an excellent practice. In particular the emphasis on collective attention and synchronous reading - I can well imagine the time invested is worth it. Would love to see this practice taken up more widely.