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Business Writing Patterns

Write messages busy people read and act on.

Help with the everyday writing that keeps an organisation moving: emails, chat messages, status updates, memos, summaries, handovers and requests to other teams. For anyone who writes at work, the cards cover knowing your reader, putting the answer first, writing sentences that cannot be misread, choosing the right format, getting decisions made and editing for people with little time.

48 cards · 6 suits · 5 recipes · 2 missions

What's inside

• Reader8Is it clear who reads this and why?
• Answer First8Does the point come in the first line?
• Clear Sentences8Could anyone misread what you wrote?
• Everyday Formats8Have you picked the right shape for this job?
• Decisions8Will this document get a decision made?
• Edit For Busy Readers8Can a busy reader act on it quickly?

A few cards

Reader

Reader And Result

Name the reader and what they should do afterwards before you write a word.

Answer First

Bottom Line Up Front

Lead with the conclusion or the ask, then give the reasons.

Everyday Formats

Four-Line Status

Changed, next, at risk, needed: four lines and a colour you can defend.

One card in full

Decisions

Name The Decision

Open with the decision needed, who makes it, by when, and the cost of no decision.

Many threads stall not because people disagree but because nobody has said what is being decided or who decides it. Discussion goes round in circles until someone calls the question. Make that someone you, in the first lines.

How to use it

1. Write the decision as a question with a clear answer: "Should we move the annual conference online this year?"
2. Name the decider: one person or a named group with a stated rule, such as "the leadership team, by consensus".
3. Give the deadline and why it is that date: "by 30 April, when the venue deposit is due".
4. Say what happens if nobody decides: "the deposit is lost and we default to in-person".
5. Put all four at the top of the document or message, before any background.
6. List who has been consulted and who still needs to be.

Example

A hospital's outpatient manager writes: "Decision needed from the clinical director by 15 May: do we extend Saturday clinics for another quarter? If we don't decide, the locum contracts lapse on 31 May and the clinics stop."

Watch out

• Naming a committee as the decider when the committee doesn't know it is deciding. Check with them first.
• Framing the question so only one answer looks sensible. That's a recommendation; keep it separate.

Pairs with Options In One Table, Your Recommendation and Action In The Subject.

Recipes

• Edit For Busy Readers: Skim your own draft as a hurried reader would, add a three-line summary, cut a third, check the skeleton, have one real reader say it back and finish with the costly-error check.
• Email They Answer: Know what reply you want, keep each email to one topic, put the action and deadline in the subject, ask in the first line, say who does what and reread for unintended edge.
• Get A Decision Made: State the decision, its owner and its deadline at the top, compare real options in one fair table, give your recommendation and its cost separately, answer the decider's questions in advance and announce the outcome to everyone involved.
• Memo In A Morning: Write a messy draft to find your point, open with a four-beat set-up, build the argument as a pyramid of grouped reasons, make headings state claims, move the detail to appendices and check the skeleton reads alone.
• Status That Gets Read: Decide who the update is for, put the headline first, fit the rest into four fixed lines, give every number a comparison and every deadline a date, then check the details that are costly to get wrong.

Missions

• Fix a team's weekly updates: from long status updates nobody reads to a lean shared template and one rewritten example that leads with changes, risks and asks.
• Turn a stalled thread into a decision: from a long email or chat thread with no conclusion to a one-page decision note with the ask, the options, a recommendation and the closing message to everyone involved.

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