Preferences for detail in protocols
I'm curious where labrats tend to fall on the spectrum of preferences for detail level in procedures and protocols that are shared or could be shared among labmates, including across time.
Most of biology/biochemistry doesn't need exact reproducibility, so for procedures, something like "vortex briefly (about 3 seconds or less)" is fine if it's good not to over-vortex, the detail of "vortex for 3.0 seconds on level 8 of the Vortex Genie" is almost never necessary, and just "vortex" not detailed enough unless it really doesn't matter how strong or how long.
It seems there's a major difference between me and some of my other labmates where I like a lot of detail in a written procedure, but they are okay with and actually seem to prefer sometimes less than succinct notes/protocols so that it is unclear in places-- they know what they meant, but a naive reader (e.g. new labmate or future lab member looking back at old notes) would sometimes be missing key info.
One argument I got from my PI was, basically, "people have different styles, but most people don't want to read too much and could end up not reading it all", which is wild to me, considering having clear instructions is a bedrock of science and learning, and having enough detail ensures allows for reproducibility. And, anyone can take a detailed procedure and make it more bare bones for themselves, but you can't take a procedure with missing info and make it more detailed without having to trial some runs or ask a lot of questions.
So what do you all think? Am I'm really part of the minority, as implied by my PI's statement?
When/If I'm a PI, should I see if my prospective employees can tolerate reading detailed protocols (because I want to avoid unnecessary questions and give them some independence)?
This PhD has made me question a lot of things I thought my 10+ years of academic lab experience have already taught me, so I genuinely want to know what other people think. Thanks!