professional-communication_skill

Overview

This skill guides technical communication for software developers across emails, team messages, meeting materials, and audience adaptation. It provides practical frameworks like What-Why-How, subject-line formulas, and meeting templates to make messages clear, scannable, and action-oriented. Use it to draft, edit, or review professional communications so your intent is received and understood.

How this skill works

The skill inspects message purpose, audience, and desired outcome, then applies structured patterns (What-Why-How, subject-line formula, agendas) to organize content. It recommends formatting, tone, and detail level based on whether recipients are technical or non-technical. It also offers checklists and templates for emails, chat etiquette, meeting invites, summaries, and jargon translation.

When to use it

• Drafting or editing emails to teammates, managers, or stakeholders
• Writing team chat messages or async updates
• Preparing meeting agendas, facilitation notes, or summaries
• Translating technical concepts for non-technical audiences
• Structuring status reports, requests, or escalations

Best practices

• Lead with the key message or request in the first 1–2 sentences
• Use What-Why-How to structure content: state the topic, explain the reason, list next steps
• Make messages scannable: bullets, short paragraphs, clear headings
• Calibrate detail to the audience: high-level impact for non-technical stakeholders, specifics for peers
• Be intentional with mentions and threads in chat to avoid unnecessary interruptions
• Run the "So what?" test and proofread for clarity and tone

Example use cases

• Email: Request approval with subject "Project X: Approval for schema change by Friday" and What-Why-How body
• Chat: Quick PR review request in a thread with clear line references and expected response time
• Meeting invite: Include objective, agenda with time estimates, prep required, and expected outcome
• Status update: One-line summary, blockers, next steps, timeline
• Stakeholder summary: Translate technical risk into business impact and recommended decision