Is 5W&H Too Much? Enough?

Every so often, students tell me they learned early in their business career to use 5W&H (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to attain completeness in a report, email, or slide presentation. I do not object to 5W&H as a guide for capturing and organizing content, especially for journalists and corporate incident reporters, whose readers expect the whole story. Nevertheless, I would admonish business and technical writers to refrain from using this technique as their sole job aid. 5W&H is just not enough in some cases, or it may be too much in others. Think about two exceptions to such a rule. 

1. 5W&H may be too much. You may not always need one or more 5 W/H elements. For example, clients may not want to reveal why they need a product or service from a supplier for at least two reasons. For one, they will use the product or service in top secret operations, such as purchasing spy cameras to surveil a suspected terrorist. For another, the why may be so obvious, such as ordering coffee for the office coffee machine. Also, staff members writing to management about a possible resolution to an ongoing problem because everyone already knows the implementation would be immediate upon approval. I could make this post run 10,000 more words if I reported every imaginable reason we might want to exclude any of the 5W&H elements. Think about it.

2. 5W&H may not be enough. Imagine writing a proposal to the executive team recommending an e-ink tablet for field investigators. You may need a sixth W, which, by including a comparative analysis of several e-ink tablets and a suggestion of which is the best for the investigators. The same goes for other 5W&H elements. In explaining a pressing problem, you may want to mention not only when (now) but since when (the past 20 business days). 

Business and technical writers need to reflect on their ever-changing audience, which varies document by document. Use 5W&H only as a means for getting started. 

Four Elements of an Audit Point—Really?

Good writing at work requires addressing the issues before anything else. The auditing world nicely illustrates this truth. The general operating principle for auditors is that an audit point includes four elements: criteria, condition, cause, and effect. These elements attempt to answer the following questions:

• criteria — By what standards is the auditor assessing the situation?
• condition — What is the situation?
• cause — Why does the condition occur?
• effect — To what risk does the condition expose the auditee? 

Here is an example:

XYZ Corporation should pay invoices within 30 days of the invoice date (criterion). XYZ pays invoices on average 45 days after the invoice date (condition) at the direction of management (cause). This delinquency could lead to poor vendor relations and subject XYZ to costly, time-consuming litigation (effect). 

But auditors should think twice if they believe that this audit point is comprehensive. They may need to consider other elements:

• method — How did the auditor determine the condition?
• limitation — What prevented the auditor from conducting a more thorough assessment?
• finding — How would the auditor summarize the condition?
• recommendation — What should the auditee do about the condition?
• follow-up — How will the auditor address this finding in a future audit?

Let's see how the narrative has to change once these additional elements appear in the same audit point:

We examined a random sampling of 400 invoices and disbursements of the 1,975 total transactions (20.3%) of XYZ's West Coast office for the period January 15, 2014 to February 14, 2014 (method). Given the two-day audit schedule, we were unable to review a larger sampling or a longer period, and we did not review XYZ's East Coast office at all (limitation).

Our review shows that XYZ's West Coast office's Account Payable Department is delinquent in disbursing funds (finding). XYZ should pay invoices within 30 days of the invoice date (criteria). In the sample, XYZ paid invoices on average 45 days after the invoice date (condition) at the direction of management (cause). This delinquency could lead to poor vendor relations and subject XYZ to costly, time-consuming litigation (effect).

XYZ management should develop a mitigation plan to pay invoices within the contractually committed period and present it to the auditor within 30 days of this report (recommendation). In 90 days, we will return to XYZ to audit Accounts Payable disbursements for this criterion (follow-up).

The seasoned auditor would rightly say that even more elements exist (e.g., auditee response, aberrations, benefits), so less experienced auditors must understand that the four-element template is there just as a jumpstart, not as a complete formula.

It's Not Just About the 5W/H

It's just not enough to start a complex document by asking the proverbial who, what, where, when, why, and how. If you're writing a hard-news article for the company newsletter or a root-cause analysis for upper management, then the 5W/H would be a terrific start. But more often than not, writers need to stress only the how, when, and where, omitting the who, what, and why altogether for scientific, political, or legal reasons.

Asking questions is a big part of critical thinking and a necessary step of quality writing. In "The Art of Asking Questions," Ron Ashkenas, writing for the Harvard Business Review Blog Network, suggests three areas to ask questions for improved managerial effectiveness: about yourself, about your plans and project, and about your organization.

Asking these questions would help to develop rich, audience-focused content for their proposals, reports, analyses, and white papers. Planning messages is a key to efficient writing, so take the time to plan-by-asking and break through writer's block.

Use the Dialogue Approach in Your Writing

One technique to focus readers--and yourself--on the content of your message is to use the dialogue approach. Imagine handing your document to your reader, who asks, "What are you giving me?" What would be your answer?

1. If it were a proposal to hire a new intern for the summer, you might say, "This review of our human resources in the audit division provides the rationale for employing an additional intern from May 31 through September 2."
2. Say you are writing to request a refund of your laptop computer during its warranty period. You would respond, "I am requesting a full refund of your UCOMP357 in accordance with the terms of the warranty."
3. A summary of your last team meeting would begin, "This is a summary of the ACE Team's last strategic meeting on August 3."
4. Perhaps it's your response to a customer request for a credit, in which case you could start, "We are responding to your credit request of July 31, 2005."

The opening purpose statement should ground the reader in the context of your message. Better yet, it should ground you during the composing process. Knowing that sentence helps you to determine what else you need to write--and not write--in the sentences that follow it. Do not underestimate the importance of a purpose statement!