What are five ways to dramatically improve email communication and prevent misunderstanding?
by
In recent years, chat tools have developed in addition to e-mail, and chat communication has been increasing in business settings, but e-mail communication is still used by many people. Software developer Lazarus Lazaridis explains 'five ways to communicate effectively, avoiding misunderstanding in email communication'.
Composing better emails
https://iridakos.com/how-to/20019/06/26/composing-better-emails.html
Although Lazaridis doesn't like email, he has been trying to create email in a way that is as efficient and error-free as possible because he can't avoid interacting with emails. Lazaridis's three main points in creating an e-mail message are: ' I want to quickly convey what I want to communicate, ' ' to prevent misunderstanding, ' and ' to save time .' Based on these policies, it seems that we have reached five ways to create better emails.
by
◆ 1: Emphasize text in bold / underlined font
Especially when sending a long message, readers can quickly understand the content of the email by highlighting particularly important parts of the message in bold. Also, when you read the email after a while, you can immediately recall the main points of the email.
bad example:
Hello.
For the past few days I have found a record of many exchanges about 'A'. This is an unusual number. I think that the problem everyone is hitting is about the latest version of 'A'.
So I made a page on Redmine (# 455) and explained the problem of the latest version.
You can change the page priority in a way that makes it easy to understand.
From Lazarus.
Good example:
Hello.
For the past few days I have found a record of many exchanges about 'A'. This is an unusual number. I think that the problem everyone is hitting is about the latest version of 'A'.
So I made a page on Redmine (# 455) and explained the problem of the latest version.
You can change the page priority in a way that makes it easy to understand.
From Lazarus.
by
◆ 2: Enter a specific date instead of “Yesterday”
When sending e-mails, it's easy to write something like 'for yesterday's matter ...' or 'Tomorrow's schedule is ...', but the recipient of the e-mail does not necessarily read the e-mail during today. If words such as 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' are used in the e-mail, 'Because the e-mail sent yesterday says' tomorrow ', is it' today '?' It is necessary for the reader to go through an extra thought. In order to avoid such troubles, Lazaridis says that the date in the email should be a specific date or time, without using common adverbs and nouns.
bad example:
Dear Quality Assurance Department.
Yesterday we released a bug fix (# 455) in the stage environment . If you give us a go sign by the end of tomorrow, we will release the fix next Monday.
From Lazarus.
Good example:
Dear Quality Assurance Department.
Yesterday, on June 25, 2019 we released a fix for bug (# 455) in the stage environment . If you give us a go-sign by tomorrow (June 27, 2019), we will release the fix in the production environment next Monday (July 1, 2019) .
From Lazarus.
by
◆ 3: Insert a reference link
If the reader of the email needs to refer to information other than the email text, it will be helpful and time-saving if the email sender puts a link to the page containing the information. In addition, you can prevent mistakes that the reader inadvertently refers to the wrong page, allowing smoother interaction.
bad example:
To Phoebe.
I did not understand the process described in the bug issue in the log. Irida's comment was not clear either. Could you help me?
From Lazarus.
Good example:
To Phoebe.
I did not understand the process described in the issue with the bug ( # 453 ) in the log. Irida's comment was not clear either. Could you help me?
From Lazarus.
by rawpixel.com
◆ 4: long messages are structured
It is difficult to read the messages connected by a long sentence, and much of the content is ignored. If you really want to send a long message, Lazaridis recommends that you sort by content and use different headers and paragraphs.
bad example:
To team members.
There was a problem (# 453) in the production environment log last week. I noticed that the log message 'A' increased significantly and that 'B' occurred and the response was delayed. At some point the server disk ran out and crashed. The administrator backed up the log and responded by removing the 'B' from the server. We immediately began to investigate what was happening and after two days we succeeded in reproducing similar errors in the stage environment. This issue is caused by the external library containing the problem 'B', and when the library was deleted, the bug stopped in the stage environment. We released the fix yesterday and everything seems to have returned to normal. We also added a script to notify you immediately if something similar happens in the future.
Thank you for your time.
From Lazarus.
Good example:
To team members.
·background
Last week there was a problem with production logs. I notice a significant increase in log message 'A'.
·result
Response delay increased due to problem 'B'. After all, 'B' ran out of disk on the server at some point and crashed.
·Cause of a problem
We immediately began to investigate what happened and after two days we succeeded in reproducing similar errors in the stage environment.
The problem was the use of an external library containing 'B'.
・ Action taken this time
1: The administrator backed up the log and removed 'B' from the server.
2: After eliminating the external library, errors can not be reproduced in the stage environment.
3: Yesterday, released the correction on June 26, 2019.
4: A script has been added to notify when a similar situation occurs.
·current situation
The server is up and everything is fine.
・ Detailed information
・Problem (# 453)
・External library official bug report
Thank you for your time.
From Lazarus.
by lukasbieri
◆ 5: Make it clear who is asking what
As Lazaridis said that he or someone else was exchanging e-mails, 'The sender was asking the recipient for something, but the recipient was not aware of the request, or something different from what was requested. I have seen a lot of cases of “handed over”. Therefore, it is important to clearly indicate what you are asking for and who you are asking for in your email.
bad example:
Everyone.
I succeeded in fixing the bug in the stage environment. Since I am not tomorrow, can I request a review and release?
goodbye.
Good example:
Hello.
I succeeded in fixing the bug in the stage environment (
I am not tomorrow, that is, June 27th, so please do the following tasks:
@ Captain: check the correction
@ Quality Assurance Department: Run a test to verify the correction
@ Developer team: Going forward to release the correction on June 28 with the quality assurance department's go-sign
We apologize for the inconvenience.
From Lazarus.
by geralt
Although email is very useful, it is inefficient to feed back and check the content you wrote once and for all, so it is important to communicate exactly what you want to communicate with a single email. It is important. More efficient communication using Lazaridis' proposed technique may lead to a reduction in the daily workload.
Related Posts:
in Note, Posted by log1h_ik