Keep it simple, stupid.

One of my former bosses always wanted "KISS" reports. Keep it simple, stupid.

It's easier to say than do. Us technical folk think in technical terms but, here's the thing, when we communicate to non-technical people we need to simplify.

Here's an example of what not to do. Recently I got an email from The North Face explaining a data breach. It began ...

On December 13, we detected unauthorised activities on a part of our IT systems, apparently carried out by external threat actors. Upon detecting the unauthorized activities, we immediately took steps to contain, assess and remediate the incident, […]

I think it is a fair assumption that only a small percentage of North Face’s customers work in IT. I don’t know how many of that group would talk about “external threat actors” or use a word like "remediate".

The customers don’t care about how the company fixed the problem; they care about their personal data.

I rewrote the opening 124 words in 63 words, and reduced the reading age from 12 to 7.

My version begins:

On 13 December there was unauthorised activity in part of our IT systems. We immediately shut down all the IT systems that might have been affected so that we could fix the problem.

If you want your emails and reports to be understood by non-technical readers you need to write less and use simpler words.