A Trial Six Page Narrative

Recently I finished the book Working Backwards, which details some of the inner workings at Amazon. One concept I found very interesting was the idea of the six page narrative, and also on the PR/FAQ. After reflecting on it, I thought that using this in a modified way could lead to improved general update meetings that I have at work. I decided to try it, and it was a great first outing.

It was a departure from convention, particularly for me, as I am so used to using part of my weekly catchup meetings to verbally socialise some matters and updates. However, I was swayed by the argument that writing down things on paper forces you to build a compelling narrative and focus on what’s important. It also came around a similar time that Jordan B Peterson’s email on being articulate landed, so it was an easy sell in the end.

It did take quite a bit of time to prepare. My first general update email needed some editing as I found that when writing on the fly, a lot of the update was superfluous and that I needed to reorder some of the updates to reflect a better flow. I have been thinking a lot recently on context switching, so grouping the updates under common themes helped.

It was great, and I’m keen to continue trying it out. It only took six minutes for the updates to be read, which allowed for 20 minutes of free flowing, and most importantly, productive conversation. We both have a clear understanding of the challenges we need to unpack, and have some good ideas to take some initiatives forward.

I highly recommend giving it a go.