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Some googling led to these related PDFs:

http://www.gazhoo.com/upload/document/2011/05/07/20110507170...

http://rtphoto.co.uk/tomflaherty/pyramid.pdf#best-memo-youll...

Excellent. Thanks.

You want an answer, but people don't necessarily want to give you one. So how do you make them want to answer you?

The answer is: sitcom + question = Answer.

Situation (We need to)

Complication (But ...)

Question (So how / what / when / where / can / could ...)

Answer (This is what you want from them).

I think there's a lot of other good communication advice in it, but most looks pretty generic (cut out the crap, use appropriate language, have some structure, etc). You've read Strunk and White right?

(Note, I've just scanned a summary, so that might not be all there is to it).

There's a bit more to it. Use of inductive and deductive reasoning. And the process for creation an argument, which I found pretty helpful.

I bought an out of print copy second hand. But you can buy a new one here: http://www.barbaraminto.com/textbook.html