A solution is only as good as others understand it.
I say that a lot to younger engineers that I mentor. It comes up because in software engineering, we are taught to think and reason objectively and deeply about the problems we tackle. We build complete mental models around them; track edge cases; and evaluate trade offs before coming to a decision on what to do. That’s our strength. There is another challenge though, how do we explain it to someone else?
The tendency is that we communicate everything instead of what our listeners or readers actually want or need. That forces the audience to do extra work; they have to filter all that extra… noise… and it is pretty common for them to tune out or get distracted in the process. That is a lose / lose because relevant information that an engineer worked hard to get doesn’t effectively get to those that need it.
To turn that around, engineers need to learn compression. That is the ability to take complex ideas, observations, and decisions and condense them into a short, clear message without losing the most important signal for the audience.
Compression focuses on saying what matters to the target audience and nothing more. Sometimes that means condensing a month of work into 90 seconds in order to maximize the understanding of what was accomplished.
What compression looks like
Compression is a structured and personalized method for communicating. The structure is what stays consistent and is there to help you be concise and organized. The content that you apply to it is personalized; focused on what is most important to the target audience.
The structure you pick needs to be something simple as well as appropriate for the work environment you are in. Generally, I stick to the following:
- Outcome
- Precisely what has happened or is happening
- Impact
- Exactly why my audience needs to care
- Context
- Briefly why this outcome has occurred or is occurring
- Principle (optional)
- The tenet, mutual contract, or cultural principle that is directly relevant
Structure forces you to organize and focus the information you are communicating. I like the above because it leads with the most important information for your audience; it starts with the punchline.
The content you apply must be tailored to the people you are talking to; it needs to be what is most relevant to them. As in, you are flipping the equation and doing all the work of filtering the information to only the bits that they care about. It is pretty common for there to be only one or two things that are truly important out of all the information you have.
That’s right. It is a tough pill for a lot of folks to swallow. There are many reasons why it is natural for engineers to want to unload all the information they have on a project or feature. However, part of the job is also making sure you don’t saturate people with that information when it isn’t important to them. When you do, you add to their information overload problems instead of providing immediate clarity.
Here’s a quick example:
Uncompressed:
We evaluated three different approaches to handling event deduplication. The first had scaling issues, the second introduced operational complexity, and the third required changes to our ingestion pipeline…
Compressed:
- We chose a TreeMap-based approach for deduplication
- Outcome
- It reduced duplicate event processing and stabilized downstream systems
- Impact
- Other options either didn’t scale or added operational risk
- Context
- We biased for simplicity over complexity
- Principle
Compression works because it mirrors how leaders and stakeholders think. They want to understand what happened or is happening; why it matters to them; and how to reason about it going forward. Compressing the information that you have into exactly what is important to a listener or reader is how you stick the landing.
Let your audience choose where to expand
Compression ensures that your communication is efficient. When using it, the person you are talking with can then ask targeted questions on things that they want more information on. They choose where to expand.
Audience lead expansion doesn’t mean you abandon compression and unload on them after they ask questions. Continue to maintain the structure while refocusing on the area that they asked for more details on. Not only does that ensure you are continuing to provide them with only the information that they want, the structure makes your messages predictable and easier to understand.
Efficient communication is about what is efficient for the people that need the information. Different people care about different things which means you frequently need to have multiple threads of communication on the same topic. That will help ensure rapid consumption of the right information by the right people. For example
- A product manager will ask about impact and risk
- A principal engineer will dig into design choices and trade offs
- A junior engineer will want to know what they are suppose to work on and how it applies to the overall project
That might sound like a lot of uninteresting work but remember, this is about sticking the landing. A solution is ONLY as good as others understand it.
Fortunately compression is really easy for AI agents to adopt with a good prompt. A little trickier is getting the content right for different target audiences. Regardless, when you are using an agent, you must absolutely own the content that you send out. On complex projects and challenges, it doesn’t take much for an AI to get confused and do a terrible job. If you aren’t careful, you just get compressed garbage.
AI is also terrible on tone and the moment that your reader or listener thinks you are just dumping something that AI produced, your creditability drops rapidly; it takes a lot of time to recover from that kind of mistake.
Efficiency with Effectiveness
Compression is really a process for efficient communication. There is the matter of tone and tone matters. If people think you’re being the loudest voice in the room instead of being calm and cool under pressure, that is a huge distraction. That is where methodology is important. Methodology is how you behave which is important for effective communication.
BIFF is a methodology for communicating when in high conflict; its roots are in divorce and co-parenting. I think it is brilliant and can be used in professional settings with a tweak. BIFF stands for the following:
- Brief
- Informative
- Friendly
- Firm
This methodology is incredibly useful for conversations that are tense, emotional, or high-stakes because it keeps things grounded and professional. However at work, generally speaking, you don’t have that high conflict element. My tweak is to replace Firm with Focused which is intended to mean staying and steering back on topic. Don’t let the conversation wander or drift.
It is important to have both compression and a positive methodology in engineering / professional conversations. Compression helps you determine what to say. Methodology helps you determine how to say it. They create communication that is clear, calm, and effective regardless of the situation.
How to start compressing
Compression is a skill you build through repetition. The more you practice, the more it shapes how you think about what information is important to the person you are talking to. You aren’t withholding information. Compression is not about hiding complexity. It is about respecting it by creating focus on what is important to your audience. You are filtering the noise so your listener or reader doesn’t have to.
Pick a structure that both works for you and your job. Next, when you put it into practice, pause. Think through how to structure your content.
There are lots of places where you can start practicing compression:
- Summarizing a completed task
- Starting a status report with a short exec summary
- Answering questions concisely in meetings and allowing attendees to choose where they want more details
When you compress well, you show that you understand what you are working on well enough to extract what matters the most to your audience. You stop burying the lead. That doesn’t just make your communication more efficient. It also builds trust. It is trust that you both know the system and how to talk about it.
Don’t forget the methodology that you use to regulate your tone. You want that compressed message to be both effective and efficient. Great compression invites conversation.
Push Pace 