1. Keep the message as short as necessary but no shorter.
2. Put the most important information at the top of the message.
3. If it email is for an ask, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message.
4. If you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with details he/she can choose to indulge.
Example
Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>>Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
>>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
> Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
Should be the call to action/last sentence instead of "Lemme know" (I read that as passive-aggressively asking for a follow up?
> because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
Too many words. Saying that vendor ABC is completing a web service won't affect your CTA. Also, that last sentence is implied.
Here is how I would send it:
SUBJECT: Bug XYZ blocking sprint. Help?
BODY:
Hey, Jane. I'm assigned to bug XYZ. We're held up waiting for something from Vendor ABC; this might make us blow our sprint. Can you help me re-prioritize this?
Now, if Jane is one that prefers having everything upfront and is diligent about getting to her emails, then a longer, more detailed message makes sense. However, I usually send my emails with the intent of illiciting a follow-up response; too much information == TL;DR
"lemme know" isn't passive-agressive, it's a clear request. you've got to sandwich the information you are providing inbetween two copies of the request:
- start with the request, so the recipient knows why they are reading the main content of the email before they start
- give them all the information that you can to help them respond
- and then end with the request again so it's clear what you actually need and they don't have to scroll back up to read it.
the request shouldn't be more than a sentence, so it's not significantly adding to the length to repeat it.
don't be shy about asking for a response - the whole point of an email should be to get a response, and being clear about what you need in the response is just helping your recipient. And if you don't need a response, be clear about that too - but if you're sending email that doesn't require a response, reconsider whether you need to be sending the email.
It's not a (sufficiently) clear request because it doesn't contain your recommendation. If you're asking them to provide their opinion, provide yours as well.
That e-mail should have been written in a style where "yes" could be a sufficient answer to the "lemme know" if the supervisor agrees, and currently it's not.
>Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>Lemme know.
Pss, amateur. That's way too many words.
Hi Jane,
should I keep fixing bug XYZ or focus on feature 123? Vendor ABC is taking longer than we thought to fix their stuff.
Bill
And sometimes add a smiley so they know you're not made of circuits yourself too.
Use this as an opportunity to 'manage up'. Frame your email to recommend the decision you'd make. In the example below, you know what I would do with no executive decision, and the response I do get can be a one word yes/no reply.
Jane, should I keep fixing bug XYZ? Im blocked by Vendor ABC.
Not as much of a problem today given the richness of mobile devices and rich text formatting but manipulating fonts (bold, italic, etc) to draw attention was problematic because people/devices would drop down to plain text formatting so the recipient does not get what the sender thinks they will see.
I think you missed a key point in your example which you demonstrated but didn’t explain. The last sentence of the email should be an action for the reader. Don’t make them scroll back up.
I'm abominable with conclusions in emails and personally feel like they are a waste (majority of the time). I know it's something I should probably be better at, but often I just finish my thought(s) and hit send.
This is too often the case. However, what it does is leaves the ask unasked. When a specific ask isn't made, with everyone's high workloads, it allows everyone just to shrug and say "Okay, not my problem." If you allow someone to interpret that nothing was actually asked of them, that's exactly how it will be interpreted more often than you would like.
If you need someone to take up the cause you have identified, you need to specifically ask them so they have to say "No, I'm not going to do that" if they're not going to pick it up. This is as much for their benefit as yours. When someone must say "Yes, I will do that" or "No, I will not do that" it helps them draw a black and white line around what they are willing or not willing to take on as part of their job. In a world where boundaries are grey, life itself is grey, it's hard to have a feeling of completion in anything. When you have no sense of completion, it leaves you feeling like you never really accomplish anything and being pushed with the current, not in charge of your own destiny.
Help people to say "Yes, that is mine" and "No, that is not mine" it is not only helpful for you to know who is in charge of something, it is helpful for them as well. It will help them to say "Actually, I've got too much on my plate already, I don't have any more capacity to take on any more just now. It would be really helpful if you could ask someone else to take this on."
For #1, what I have found works best is to nix the huge amount of text you'd otherwise write in the email and put it in a link. A document maybe, or better yet a beautiful portal that works on desktop and mobile.
That way the email is short AND the link can be reshared!
I had a problem where we did exactly that, "please read the document at this link because <list of reasons>". Check the logs, person had not even clicked on it. Asked them about why they had not read the document mentioned in email, and proceeded to show their phone's email app, said "Yes, I read it, see here, the message is marked read in my email."
That doesn't work when your recipients are frequent business travellers who have only intermittent Internet connectivity and the link is behind a corporate firewall. For those people I usually include the document as an attachment. Not ideal but it keeps the discussion moving.
That's a terrific idea, if that kind of CMS-ish system is available to you or within your organization. Unfortunately I've never been exposed to or have much experience with something like that : (
Office 365 is the closest I've experienced. I actually kinda like it. My biggest use-case is wider spread documentation that is inappropriate to distribute as an attachment.
1. Keep the message as short as necessary but no shorter.
2. Put the most important information at the top of the message.
3. If it email is for an ask, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message.
4. If you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with details he/she can choose to indulge.
Example
Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
Lemme know.