Stop the Shortcut Culture: Why One-Page ‘Guides’ Are Failing Us All

The world, and particularly the world of social media, is littered with one page guides. I use the word “littered” deliberately, because most of it is, actually, well - litter. I feel like a rant today, let’s do this.

What’s wrong with a 1 page guide?

If you have to put everything into size 6 font to make it all fit on to one page, it isn’t a one page guide and it isn’t getting read. Not by me at least. If you can’t make your idea fit into a sentence, you haven’t thought enough about the nexus of your idea. Of course, if it’s not even your idea and you’re just regurgitating someone else’s work and trying to make it fit into a page, well, today may not be the day to open that can of worms.

A one page guide is not a guide. A map is a good guide. But it has thousands of information points and reference points on the one page. Even if you go down to size 4 font, you’re not going to compete. A guide needs to lead me, help me, direct me, set me right when I’m going wrong. A few words and a nice graphic about the trend of the day does not guide. It might tease. It might suggest. It won’t guide.

I value myself and my profession too much to take on a new idea because I read about it in a one page guide. If someone is suggesting I try something new, I am all ears. I spend an hour every day reading about the latest ideas in project management and I am open to the new. When I hear something new, I like to get into the detail. Why does it work? Where are the proof points? Who’s used it to what effect in what context? I’m not going to take a trend vomited onto a page and suddenly put it into my repertoire without some careful thought. What I do is too important to me to do that. So, your one page guide, is not working for me.

What has this got to do with projects?

Firstly, project management is full of one page guides and that just rattles my cage. There are, however, some interesting lessons in here that we can all use for what we do.

1. Bring clarity to our writing. Your one page guide doesn't need to be size 6 font if you're clear on what you're saying. Writing project updates for the Board of Directors of public companies was an eye opener and a vital lesson to me. The agony that went over whether a particular word was preferable to another. The effort that went in to writing and re-writing the update seemed entirely out of kilter with the value of the update. Until it was done. It was a thing of beauty. Every word meant something. It was not possible to express our thoughts better, or more succinctly. This was the ultimate sign of respect to our audience. They didn’t have to interpret, or spot the message behind the message, to try and understand what we were saying. We can all take lessons like that into our project updates and reports.

2. Are you really clear on what you’re trying to say? If you can’t express your message in 1 sentence, maybe you’re not really clear on what your message is. When I struggle to get a thought down into a sentence, it tells me that there are still unknowns that I should resolve first or that I don't really understand the topic. Rather than having my audience tell me that they don’t understand, if I spend the time to answer the unanswered questions, so my thoughts can be detailed in a sentence, I get a better result.

3. Be a time ninja. When I can express my thoughts clearly, in a sentence, my stakeholders are able to respond and take action in a way that generates out-sized results for my project. When I move from “we’ve got an issue, this is complicated, let me walk you through this slowly”, to “we’re going to be late because the development team have been given two number one priorities and they’re wasting time trying to keep two masters happy. You just need to choose one priority”, things happen. Stuff gets done. When I do the thinking so I can be clear, rather than passing that particular monkey up the hierarchy, my project just clicks. Stakeholders really value this too because almost no one does it.

OK, this post has been pretty cathartic for me today, thank you for reading. If you’re interested in more ideas, check out my collection of one page guides…