Consulting Journal: Writing - Hurrier or worrier

Writing: Hurrier or worrier

by David Blakey

People can "hurry" or "worry" their way through a first draft of a report. What they produce can be different.

[Friday 22 June 2001]

There are many different ways of preparing reports. Consultants need to be able to use the ways that work best, depending on the kind of report that they are writing.

In addition, there are two main kinds of report writers: the hurriers and the worriers.

Hurriers

Hurriers start to write a report at the beginning and then continue to write until they reach the end. Their focus on getting to the end means that they usually work quickly. This is why I call them hurriers. Because they work quickly, they are likely to make mistakes. This does not mean that they are careless in their work. They just make mistakes because they are writing rapidly.

There is actually another kind of report writer who works quickly and carelessly. I call them ‘scurriers’. Scurriers often do more harm than good. We shall assume that neither you nor your colleagues are scurriers.

So, hurriers tend to write quickly and to make mistakes. Usually, they do not spot those mistakes until they have completed the first draft of the report.

Worriers

Worriers do not immediately start to write their reports. They consider what they will put in the report. When they do begin to write, they may not start at the beginning. They may not continue through to the end, but ‘hop about’ instead, going back to parts of the report that they have already written and making changes. Worriers continually re-read what they have written and make changes and corrections to it.

What they produce

The hurriers will produce the first draft of the report quickly. They can usually be relied upon to produce the first draft within the time estimated for it. There may be mistakes and there may be omissions. Because of this, their work will always be treated as a first draft. They - and others - will know that a lot of work may still be needed. But at least they have ‘got something down on paper’.

The worriers will produce a better first draft, that will need fewer changes and fewer additions, although that first draft will take longer for a worrier to produce than for a hurrier. Occasionally a worrier may make some many changes and corrections that they do not complete the first draft on time. Usually, however, their first draft will not need much further change to transform it into the final report.

What you should know

The first thing that you should know is that it is often difficult to predict whether a writer will be a hurrier or a worrier on a particular report. Few people will always be exclusively hurriers or worriers. A good analogy is with the people who write for newspapers. Journalists will tend to be hurriers. They will produce their stories quickly. Because of their training, journalists will make fewer mistakes in their first draft than you would expect a consultant to make in writing a report. But they will work quickly. Columnists, on the other hand, will tend to write like worriers. They are more likely to revise their writing than news journalists. But journalists can be columnists and vice versa. They can change their method of working to the circumstances, so that journalists can work as worriers when they have longer deadlines. Columists can be hurriers when their deadlines are short.

Most consultants have not been journalists or columnists, so they usually cannot deliberately adjust their writing style. The way that they work on a particular report will be determined by the nature of the report and the nature of the writer's involvement.

It is often the case that a consultant who has worked on all the research for the report will work on it as a hurrier, while a consultant who has to rely heavily on other consultants' source material is more likely to be worrier. But this is not always the case.

The second thing that you should know is that you cannot this situation. Someone who is going to write the first draft as a worrier cannot be persuaded to write it as a hurrier. If you attempt to change this you may end up with a first draft that is both late and full of errors.

What you should do

Whether you are writing the report or you are editing someone else's first draft, you should be aware of some important points.

It will usually take the same amount of time to complete the report, regardless of whether a hurrier or a worrier wrote the first draft.
It will take the same amount of time to review the first draft, regardless of the author of that first draft.
Usually, therefore, the time needed to make changes and additions to produce the final draft will be less with the worrier than with the hurrier, all other things being equal.

Before you ask what I mean by ‘all other things being equal’, I shall explain it. The author of the first draft can produce a report that misses its target and needs to be completely (or substantially) re-written. This can occur whether that author is a hurrier or a worrier. The difference is that the problem will appear later with the worrier. (It is important to note that worriers are not more likely to correct this themselves: they will just continue to work down the wrong route for longer.)

You should be aware of the way in which you or someone else is writing the first draft. You can then ensure that you put enough time into reviewing and revising and still produce a good report on time.

Let's look at an example. When a hurrier writes our first draft, they can complete it in three days. A worrier may take five days. When we review this first draft, the hurrier's version may take us two days. The worrier's version should also take two days. There is a temptation to spend less time reviewing a worrier's first draft, on the grounds that there will be fewer errors. There may be, but that is no excuse for rushing the review. Corrections and further drafts of the hurrier's draft are likely to take about another four days. The same work on the worrier's first draft may take two days.

It varies, of course. Sometimes a hurrier's draft can be almost perfect. Sometimes a worrier's draft can need a lot more work.

On the whole, though, it helps to know which style has been used before you start the review of the first draft.

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