The phrase “executive summary” is strange.
“Oh, you’re the most important person? You only need to read this. Everyone else: Go ahead and waste your time with the full thing!”
Why should only executives be spared the task of reading fluff? If the important, power-wielding, DECIDER only needs to read a few paragraphs to get what’s going on, that should be enough for everyone else too.
Sure, the real context of these summaries is usually “If you don’t have full bandwidth right now, read this.” But if that’s the real meaning, why not have a title which accurately reflects that?
Greg
on 15 Sep 09Memo’s use to be “executive summaries” for the everyday person … but email has replaced the old fashioned Memo.
Josh Poulson
on 15 Sep 09It’s not because the person reading it is supposed to be an executive, the person reading it is supposed to EXECUTE. The information and reasoning provided is all that is necessary to drive action.
ML
on 15 Sep 09@JP, From link in post: “Executive summaries are written literally for an executive who most likely DOES NOT have the time to read the original.”
GeeIWonder
on 15 Sep 09Why should only executives be spared the task of reading fluff? If the important, power-wielding, DECIDER only needs to read a few paragraphs to get what’s going on, that should be enough for everyone else too.
Ah yes, the key to good governance.
2000-2008 coming into focus yet?
ML
on 15 Sep 09@GeeIWonder, Yeah, the opposite holds true too. If others really need to read the whole thing, then the decider probably should too.
JanusKirin
on 15 Sep 09I don’t think “fluff” is the right term.
If you’re the network administrator and you receive a long technical document from a vendor, you read it to ensure their product will work for you. Then you create an executive summary to recommend (or not) the product for your boss. Executives don’t need to vet every little detail. That’s your job.
Same goes if you’re the vendor and you write the executive summary. The summary says, “here’s a brief description of what this thing does.” If the executive reads it and thinks it’s a good idea, s/he gives the full document to a specialist who understands the rest. That person might then have to throw up red flags if the summary is misleading or if, somewhere in the details, is something that won’t work for the company.
What executive summaries are you ranting against? They seem reasonable to me.
Eric Anderson
on 15 Sep 09I think it has something to do with trust.
A full report should have all the data and information to back up a statement. But the executive summary just provides the statement without all the details.
The details are still import as they provide the support for the summary. If your trust the source of the report then you can likely just read the executive summary allowing you to get the information without the supporting details. This is associated with executives because they implicitly trust their sub-ordinates via delegation. They don’t need to read the details because they trust those that wrote the summary can back it up with good details.
The details are for those that don’t trust the summary. They want more info. This could be outside parties. Or perhaps another department within the organization.
Anonymous Coward
on 15 Sep 09I think we’re talking about two different kinds of summary.
The “executive summary” for executives who are truly committed to the project, can find the time to understand the details, and understand the details about each stakeholder in the project. They just need a general overview, an elevator pitch, to help sell the product. This is the text you have to be careful writing because the executive will spot B.S. and ask about it.
The “executive pacifier” for executives who really don’t care about a project, can pass the blame for the failure to someone else, and who just need some technical keywords to fill their allotted 5min at a meeting of like-minded execs. This is the text you write up when your think “the boss is crying for details about the project, I’ll write up some crap to silence him for a week or two.”
Many of us have been burned by a boss who is looking for filler words and will blame someone else if the project fails. It’s easy for us to be cynical about the value a real executive summary holds when read by a boss who is truly committed to the project.
Be careful not to confuse an executive summary for a pacifier.
Joe Snuffy
on 15 Sep 09The executives are the ones with the least time to spend in the weeds. They have to filter many, many things that people are pushing their way so they spend time on the things that are important to them. They read the summary to decide if they need to read the whole thing.
It’s similar to a scientific abstract. Scientists read the abstract to see if the paper is meaningful to them. They don’t have to slog through lots of scientific writing and data to figure out that they didn’t need to read the paper.
Berserk
on 15 Sep 09As a non-native English speaker I haven’t heard the phrase too many times, but I have always thought that what was ‘executive’ was the summary (as in definitive) and not the reader.
Mig
on 15 Sep 09Really?
Why are you called 37signals? You don’t signal anything nor do you deal in the frequency domain. Why don’t you have a company name that more accurately reflects what you do?
Joe Sak
on 15 Sep 09Keeping in mind you linked to a definition of ‘executive summary’, it was always my impression that an executive summary helps someone understand the business reasons behind a proposal, and that the rest of the proposal usually has other information meant for a CTO or developers.
So an executive summary tells the big guy, “hey this is what this is and why we should do it” and the CTO & developers, by now, should be familiar with the material that covers their role in the project, and should be able to vouch for it to that executive.
That’s just always been my impression.
Phil
on 15 Sep 09“It’s not because the person reading it is supposed to be an executive, the person reading it is supposed to EXECUTE . The information and reasoning provided is all that is necessary to drive action.”
I disagree with this comment. Executives do a limited amount of hands-on executing, particularly in larger organizations; they lead others who supervise and/or perform the work. The executive summary may tell them what should be done, what is being done, or what was done. The executive must make high-level decisions about WHAT WILL BE EXECUTED BY SOMEONE in the organization based on the information provided to them.
Many people need to know the details, but executives do not always require them.
Ben
on 15 Sep 09Are you really that clueless? The goal is to use a big word and make the “executives” feel like VIPs. That’s it.
Same reasons why hotels and airports have “executive lounges”.
Matt B
on 15 Sep 09+1000
Andrew Wicklander
on 15 Sep 09I always took Executive Summary to basically mean “Information for anyone outside the project/product team that wants to know what’s going on – but will also likely be read by an executive.”
The real answer to the question is probably habit.
I can’t think of a single time I’ve prepared an “executive summary” where calling it a “project summary” wouldn’t have been sufficient, and likely more accurate.
Tony A
on 15 Sep 09And they sit in their executive chairs while reading them.
Ralph Haygood
on 15 Sep 09“Another segment of society that has constructed a language of its own is business. The businessman says that ink erasers are in short supply, that he has updated the next shipment of these erasers, and that he will finalize his recommendations at the next meeting of the board. He is speaking a language that is familiar to him and dear to him. Its portentous nouns and verbs invest ordinary events with high adventure; the executive walks among ink erasers, caparisoned like a knight.” (W. Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, 1979, The Elements of Style, 3rd edition, pp. 82—83.)
Alejandro Moreno
on 15 Sep 09Executive Summary: These are the findings. The Rest: This is the justification/reasoning/methodology that led to the findings.
Mark Dodwell
on 15 Sep 09It’s the summary that is executive, not the intended audience. It just implies the summary is important and an organiser for the entire document.
Isaac Pei
on 15 Sep 09the summary exists for its reason. whether it’s used properly or not is a different question. great executive should know the important, crutial aspects for the projects (i.e. summary) while from time to time dive into the details to see how things are executed really
Joe P
on 15 Sep 09Yeah you’re right. It should just read: “Summary”
Anson
on 16 Sep 09Yeah, and WTF is up with a king’s ransom—we deserve those too! I mean, don’t I deserve a princely sum for my release… oh shit. not again!
Rachel Lehman
on 16 Sep 09I always just sort of thought of the exec summary as being “dumbed down” for executives ;) mostly because any summary I write is going to contain a lot of technical mumbo jumbo that the non-technical executive won’t understand!
Esme Vos
on 16 Sep 09Haven’t you been reading Dilbert? It’s the Boss who’s always the dumbest person in the room.
heist
on 16 Sep 09You’re assuming that all else in the document is “fluff” when it may be actually be background or collateral. A true Executive Summary is crafted by someone the executive trusts, to advise them.
In any case the point here seems really: don’t use stupid puffed up “corporate” language like “Executive Summary” when you mean “Summary”.
Anonymous Coward
on 16 Sep 09vsfbds
Jesus A. Domingo
on 16 Sep 09The definition cited is really scary. Executives are not supposed to spend a long time reading detailed reports and yet, are expected to make good decisions out of these summaries?
Given that the summary contains the important points and everything else is just fluff, why come up with the detailed report in the first place?
Don Ryan
on 16 Sep 09It’s interesting to consider some other terms that are used for essentially the same thing:
- crib notes
- cheat sheet
- pass notes (in the UK)
- cog notes (in Ireland, where I’m from)
And yes, I know each of these is used in two contexts and one is where the summary is secreted about your person to cheat at an exam. But more generally, they also mean some kind of minimal outline. Critically, the language used has a slight note of humility. As though it hints at the constraints on the reader: that they’re time-pressed or even just plain lazy. But you can’t have that kind of humility in the puffed-up world of business. You need to make a virtue out of the lack of detail. You need a name that suggests “this kind of document is just for the top guys”.
Joe
on 16 Sep 09I guess it must be hard to come up with interesting posts consistently.
Martial
on 16 Sep 09AusAID, the Australian Government’s humanitarian donor, has recently made it their policy that all reports from organizations that they fund cannot be more than five pages long. They recognize that report writing takes time away that is better spent doing the actual work. However, they have expectations that reports will reflect thoughtful execution of the work. If a report avoids conclusions or findings or interesting questions and reads like a pacifier, AusAID has suggested that they will kick your organization’s ass.
Francis
on 16 Sep 09Traffic Signs are the best example of why we need “executive summary” they are there to make quick and knowledgeable decisions.
NatalieMac
on 17 Sep 09I used to work for a man who was so busy (mostly running his personal errands during the workday) that he made me write Executive Summaries for nearly all the mail he received. It was a completely pointless waste of my time – he was too busy to even read the summaries, and often just wanted me to sum it up to him verbally in one sentence or less.
At least it was good practice for Twitter.
Leoben
on 20 Sep 09Interesting discussion.
I tend to agree with the comments from @Eric Anderson and @Joe Snuffy.
It’s like writing and argumentative essay with only the introduction / conclusion (i.e. no body paragraphs).
Somewhere in the organizational chart, it is someones job to evaluate / verify / analyze the supporting evidence.
This discussion is closed.