The Power of Writing in Product Management
By: Zakir Tyebjee
Tags: Writing, Product Management, Skills, Technology, Productivity

Why You Should Write

I never truly understood the value of writing until I joined Amazon, where writing is standard in almost all roles at the company. Over the years of writing the canonical six-page memos, requirements documents, and even emails, I’ve grown to both understand and love the power of writing. I’ve seen how writing provides depth to a discussion, saves time, and results in better products. And while not every great PM is a great writer, I believe there are some key advantages to writing that will make you a more well-rounded PM.

1. Writing Forces You to be Thorough

Writing is a mechanism that helps you objectively structure your thoughts. In doing so, you can think about your content more deeply and tell a cohesive story more effectively. Each word, sentence, and paragraph matters. You can focus more time on content, scope, and flow, and spend less time on visuals, style, and formatting.

“There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking” — Jeff Bezos

Amazon promotes a culture of writing, and that starts at the top with the CEO. Whether you are a Junior PM or Director of Product, you use writing to sell an idea, define requirements, and provide status. As a culture, this instills depth of thought and better decision-making. You learn how to think with structure. You learn how to be comprehensive. You learn how to ask the right questions. You learn how to audit a problem. You learn how to handle ambiguity. Ultimately, I believe that all of these benefits carry over into product management at any company.

2. Writing Saves Time

Often times, I see meetings being substitutes for writing laziness. Why spend an hour discussing a decision, when you can summarize your thoughts in a well-written email instead? Why spend time talking about requirements, when you can document them and gather feedback over Slack instead? Why spend time talking about how to create a plan, when you can draft a proposal and review your recommendation instead?

PMs always have more to do, so time is money — don’t waste that time in unproductive meetings. Instead, use the time to create written context, and only use meetings to facilitate productive discussion. Treat email/Slack as substitutes for meetings, and use them to gain alignment instead of to spark debate. Over-communicate and over-share your writing, especially as the workforce becomes more remote and asynchronous. Eventually, you’ll notice that you need fewer meetings and are more efficient with your time.

3. Writing is Shareable

Written content is shareable, reusable, and timeless. It serves as documentation and can be stored in a centralized location. It lives beyond the author, is never static, and can be referenced later. And sometimes, it can even mitigate the bus factor risk within your product team.

Write comprehensively, so content can stand on its own and be shared broadly. Always include as much information as possible because most readers will not have all the context. Be explicit in your thoughts and recommendations, so follow-ups are seldom required. And finally, share content frequently through all three streams of communication — horizontal (your team and peers), vertical (your leadership), and external (your customers). Over time, you will be pleasantly surprised to see how transparent writing builds timeless reference points of information that benefit you and your extended team.