Rewrite the same content for different readers
What your boss reads and what an engineer reads have to be two different documents
Rewrite the passage below into two versions: 1) for [managers] — under 150 words, covering only impact, risk, and the decision you need; 2) for [the people doing the work] — keep every technical detail and every step. Neither version may drop a load-bearing fact. [paste the original]
How to use
Diff the two versions. Any fact that appears in one and not the other is either jargon or a real omission — decide which.
Good for
- You owe the same news to the people who decide and the people who execute: one document read two ways satisfies neither side.
- A launch note goes to customers and to internal support at the same time: one wrong version becomes a support ticket the next morning.
Not for
- The readers are actually the same people and you are only worried they will not follow: define the terms and add a background paragraph instead of writing two documents.
- It is an incident notice whose wording has to clear legal: rewriting restarts the review, so finalize first and distribute after.
Example
Input
Bumped cache TTL from 60s to 300s. Hit rate went from 71% to 88%. Profile edits now take up to 5 minutes to show up.
What you get
Manager version under 150 words: database load is down, profile edits lag up to five minutes, do we accept that delay. Engineering version keeps the TTL, hit rate, and propagation path; both agree on facts and neither adds a conclusion.
Common mistakes
- Asking for one version and trimming it for your boss yourself — the trimming is exactly where the risk gets cut.
- Demanding that both versions be complete: a complete manager version is not a manager version, so it just copies the technical detail across.
Try tweaking it like this
- Change 'for managers' to 'for yourself in three months' when a handover doc needs the reasoning, not the conclusion.
- Add 'flag the one fact missing from the other version and say why it was dropped' when you need both audiences telling the same story.