Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Stripe, decision making, and SCQA

Photo by Andrew Buchanan on Unsplash


I've recently become interested in Stripe after noticing that a bunch of their people (Patrick Collison, Claire Hughes Johnson,  Zack Tratar, Jeff Weinstein, Patrick McKenzie @ ~46:55) frequently talk about the practice of decision making -- a practice I picked up ~4 years ago after being frustrated by unclear thinking, decision making, and history around product decisions. 

One framework that routinely pops up is Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principal and SCQA framework for effective communication.

Here is a short primer 👇

SCQA Framework


S = Situation

What is the state of affairs? (fact-based, uncontroversial)

C = Complication

What is changing to make things harder?

Q = Questions

What is the question that naturally falls out of S & C?

Almost always the question is, “What should we do?”

A = Answers

What are you going to do to resolve that complication?

What arguments and evidence support that answer?

[make sure this resolves C 100%]

Learn More


Harrison Metal - Thank You, Barbara Minto [Video]

Heavybit - Executive Communication [Video]