Published: 1 February 2015
I've been working on several projects lately (only one for this site) that have collectively meant that there have been less frequent updates to this site than there has been in the past. But I came across something today from Nancy Duarte that I really thought was worth recommending.
Nancy Duarte is a well-known expert on presentations, whose books I HIGHLY recommend. On her web site she has a 160+ page presentation that discusses her SlideDocs© concept in depth. This presentation on SlideDocs© is actually a SlideDoc itself. So what's a SlideDoc? In her words:
"A slidedoc is a document created using presentation software, where visuals and words unite to illustrate one clear point per page. The result is a medium that can be read and digested more quickly than either a document or a presentation."
This SlideDoc on SlideDocs has an extensive discussion of the use of the SlideDoc concept, their creation, best usages, the scenarios when they are most useful, and more.
I'm still re-reading and digesting the concept she presents, but I can see that BA's could find this document structure very useful in their work. A lot of BA's have experience with visual communication, but many tend to favor the written word for precision and clarify. This format let's BA's take advantage of both skills.
However, I would add that it might be worth looking at other software than just those designed for Presentations (such as PowerPoint) and to also consider software designed for more visually-enhanced documents than Word is capable of, especially desktop publishing software such as Microsoft's own Publisher and open-source applications like Scribus.
But no matter what tool you decide to use, I recommend giving Duarte's SlideDocs concept a good look and solid consideration. It's the type of communication method I think BA's should be adding to their repertoire if it's not already there.