Communication frameworks as trainable skills
Communicating technical answers: answer shapes, trade-off sentences, saying "I don't know" well, pacing a design round and debugging out loud.
8 lessons
Answer shapes
- 1The conceptual answer shape: say it, show how, then stopSay the answer in one sentence, show how it works, then stop: depth shows in the follow-ups, not in length.
- 2The trade-off sentence: what it gives, what it costs, why you'd pick it, when you'd switchA trade-off answer names both options, what yours gives, what it costs, why you'd still pick it, and what would change your mind.
- 3I don't know, but here's how I'd reasonMake the unknown visible and your next inference inspectable.
- 4Climbing the follow-up ladder: a mechanism, a number or a signal on every rungFollow-ups are how depth is measured: climb each rung with a mechanism, a number or a signal, never your first answer again.
Round-specific delivery
- 5Pacing a design roundMake coverage visible before detail, and narrate every deliberate change of route.
- 6Proactive deep dives: lead the next investigationKeep the risk, choice, uncertainty, and comparison on one claim.
- 7The debugging narrative: say what each check would mean, then what it ruled outDebug aloud as a ledger: before each check, say what each result would mean; after it, say what it ruled out and what comes next.
- 8Tracing one action end to end: every hop in order, out and back, one line eachOne action, every hop in order, out and back to the user; one line each before any depth.