How to write great summaries

Writing succinct summaries significantly increases the odds of your message being read and, with practice, can save you a lot of time.

The Minto Pyramid Principle offers a helpful framework for crafting effective summaries. While the original book (link) is lengthy and expensive, the core concepts are straightforward and can be learned from online summaries (this 8-minute YouTube video is a great start).

A few tweaks to the pyramid principle can greatly enhance written summaries. While examples often focus on strategy recommendations, the approach works for any summary, as demonstrated below.

Tweak #1: Represent the pyramid as indented bullets, with the conclusion as the first line in bold, supporting arguments at the first indentation level, and supporting data at the second indentation level:

We closed bug #3571 with minimal user impact

• We closed the bug within the SLA

  • The bug - a P1 - was closed in 36 hours

  • Our P1 resolution SLA is 48 hours

• The bug seems to be resolved

  • No additional user complaints since the fix was deployed

  • Upon investigation we found no log events related to the bug - we also deemed that changing logging was unessessary moving forward

• User impact of the bug was minimal

  • We received 15 user complaints related to the bug

  • The 15 tickets represented 0.01% of total ticket volume over that time period

Tweak #2: Collapse the supporting arguments and data into a two-layer summary. Eliminate qualifying verbs (e.g., "minimal," "seems to be," etc.) and replace them with concrete supporting data. Re-order secondary bullets based on importance.

We closed bug #3571 within SLA; 15 users impacted (0.01% of all incidents)

• 15 user complaints related to the bug (.01% of incidents)

• P1 bug closed within 24 hours (36 hour SLA)

• No additional user complaints since the fix was deployed

• Upon investigation we found no log events related to the bug - we also deemed that changing logging was unessessary moving forward

Tweak #3: Eliminate data points that aren't essential to the conclusion. In fact, don’t pursue or investigate data points that aren't required to make your case. This step can be highly timesaving if done upfront. The point of the Pyramid Principle is not to create a formal logic proof; in real life, circumstantial facts are often enough to support your main point.

We closed bug #3571 within SLA, 15 users impacted (0.01% of all incidents)

• 15 user complaints related to the bug (.01% of incidents)

• P1 bug closed within 24 hours (36 hour SLA)

• No additional user complaints since the fix was deployed