Stop using PowerPoint as a working document

I’m spending more time working with people with management titles, and I find a few things disturbing. I have attended working sessions where the collaborative document was a PowerPoint slide deck. That was super confusing to me because a slide deck is something I have used when I had to attend a conference to give a talk about a specific topic. A PowerPoint slide deck as a work deliverable blew my mind.

When I have to work on complicated topics with people, I prefer having a working session on a written working document. In working sessions, you want to delve deeply into topics to make informed decisions. You want to find a solution to a problem people can’t solve alone. Working with slide decks, people automatically think in bullet points – they are a dime a dozen and not much worth. Slide decks force people to limit themselves to a few words to articulate complex situations. The cognitive load to solve the problem is on the reader, not the writer.

Bullet points are mostly used to highlight problems and not answer them. Having a written working document is far more effective. Writing in sentences and paragraphs forces the writer to think about order, structure, and content. It moves the cognitive load from the reader to the writer and increases the contribution. There is a catch - written articles make you vulnerable because they will highlight quickly what you understood and what you haven’t. A work environment that is welcoming and thankful about highlighting gaps in your shared understanding is key to finding a good solution and will help you ask the right questions.