Banish the jargon that does not survive an outsider's ear.
technique — attributed to Amanda Slavin
Slavin's discipline for her agency is to make a list of words, abbreviations, acronyms, and phrases that make sense within their professional vernacular but not to anyone else, and to banish them. The replacement is to define what is actually meant in plain language inside every scope of work. The technique surfaces how much specialty language is doing work the team did not realize. Once banished, the team writes more clearly and the client understands what they are buying. The discipline is portable. Any organization with a specialty vocabulary can run the same audit and gain the same clarity.
For agency leaders, internal communications teams, and any organization whose work is being misunderstood by clients. The technique is most useful as a one-time audit followed by a maintained banned-words list.
plain-language, jargon, specialty-words, communication-discipline