Hack Your Bureaucracy

What makes a compelling one-pager? 1. A simple title. The reader should be able to “get it” with just a glance. Consider introducing the name of your initiative in the title. 2. The BLUF. Put your conclusion at the top, known as the bottom line up front (BLUF). 3. Description of the issue. Why does anyone care? You might be living a particular challenge, but does anyone else in your organization think it is a significant problem? 4. An anecdote or statistic (or both) that illustrates the problem. What examples do you have to convince your reader that this matters? 5. Proposed change. What is the change you desire? 6. Concrete next steps. Specifically, who do you propose to do what, in what time frame? The next steps might seem small compared with the overall proposed solution, but it’s better to start with concrete, measurable actions. 7. It’s actually one page. We’ve all played with margins, fonts, and point size to make more words fit on the page; but the idea here is to genuinely limit yourself to one page with one-inch margins and a legible font set no smaller than 10 point. Ideally, it’s 1.5 line spaced for readability. There is a lot of value in several-page memos, but the discipline a one-pager creates is powerful.