Being unclear in several ways

In this section, we explore two anti-patterns that in different ways explore intentional and unintentional lack of clarity in technical communication. We start by exploring an anti-pattern that seeks to deploy a lack of clarity for a tactical purpose but ends up causing adverse effects.

Ambiguous solution

Ambiguous solution proposes to hide away a conflicted or uncertain decision behind ambiguous language and representations to postpone the need to make it.

Example

GrillCo, a major online retailer focused on outdoor cooking equipment, is facing major issues in its order management process. There are frequent unanticipated stock-outs, wrong delivery calculations both for duration and costs, and taxes are not consistently applied correctly.

This is not entirely an IT problem, and in fact, many areas of process improvement have been identified. However, as part of the wider order management transformation, GrillCo management has also decided...