The other day I received an email that contained 1000+ words. The purpose of the email was to ask for my feedback on an idea that the sender was working on. The message started by going into deep background and then moved into the different considerations and various viewpoints. It included arguments and counter-arguments that may or may not have actually occurred. This is a common occurrence when communicating, especially among more junior engineers. They want to make sure that they have covered all the bases and answered any questions that I could possibly have. It happens more often in writing than in direct discussion for a few reasons. Mostly because, I will generally stop the conversation when I realize what’s going on and ask them to just let me know what they want. I have one thing to say about this - long, detailed emails and communications are not helpful or effective. It is very difficult to fully comprehend all the background information by just reading an email. To fu...