Game in the Brain

What has changed fundamentally in me is the distrust of the limitation of verbal communications and acting without a Plan. I now have a very great distrust of simplicity, and a great appreciation for complexity.

1. Gotten better in Writing. By better I mean having mastered a narrow field of key elements in writing as regard to work.

1.1. Actionable, Criteria, Scope and Rationale. What is CLEAR language is not something that is taught in school, but its taught in Quality Management Theory. I wish I was taught this as part of my basic education – and it should be.
1.2. Writing Goals and Objectives. This is hard basically its making informed decisions and writing all that Information that INFORMS the decision. No GUT instinct, it has to be rationalized and presented for review and criticism.
1.3. Inquiry. Able to sit down without the internet and write down all my questions.
1.4. Time and Motion of Writing. I now know how much I get done writing (more or less). At least to the level that I can act on my prediction and monitor my progress to change my assumptions and plan when my writing is not working out.

2. Planning. What is a Plan? What does it look like at work? How is it communicated? How are all the assumptions and information that informs the decisions of a plan tracked and monitored so when new information comes up, the plan adapts?

I know now how to make a plan – from as simple as a Line Item in my Notebook, to a Procedure, Report, or Analysis, in my Work Documentation. I know that there is:

2.1. Objectives – clarity of what we want out of this.
2.2. Scope – tracking All the information related to the what composes the Objectives. Scope is what this is ALL ABOUT. this is where we dump Reasoning, What is affected, Who is affected, what is out of Scope, Constraints and limitations, etc….
2.3. Responsibility – a CLEAR communications of responsibility.
2.4. Procedures and Activity.
2.5. Maintaining this BODY OF KNOWLEDGE. Plan is a skill – its a body of knowledge regarding a particular course of action. The level of completeness is that it allows anyone to act on the information in the documentation.  That assumptions and information is always changing and here in this document we track it so that we can ADAPT to changing circumstances.

3. The Internet is a Powerful Distraction and Tool. there are definitely somethings better done when I’m sitting down with a Pen and Paper without the internet. There are better ways to use the Internet. It is one of the most powerful distractions I need to learn to manage. We all its both a distraction and tool, one of the wierd things is that No one tells us to: Define our METHOD of minimizing it as a Distraction and Maximizing it as a Tool.

4. Rules of Thumbs.
4.1 it takes 1 hour to make a hundred word or 20 item plan. Planning output is less and less when there is little to no Official company Data about the course of action and it has to be built from scratch.
4.2. We begin with knowledge or understanding. All work typically begins from Academic Analysis when the company fails to make one of its own. It all begins with a Textbook if the Company has not begun or created its own body of knowledge.
When we do something – the first question is WHAT THE FUCK DO WE KNOW ABOUT THIS?
4.2.1 Is it in a Document. IF NOT – why the hell not?
4.2.2 Who’s job it is to know this? (see 4.7). If there is someone who knows is his knowledge accessible? Can he document it so that It doesnt take any of his time for 20 people to ask questions about the Topic – its all in a document we can study.
If this tasks can take up one whole man day or is a Process owned by the Department – there better be a Document that talks about this ASAP.
4.3. Nothing is ever simple anymore. Everything is a complex set of trade offs, opportunity costs, and diminishing returns. So it better have a document. If we are going to spend 1M or the manhour equivalent doing something it better have at the minimum 2k of words of data and analysis.
4.4. All new and highly influential/costly information is best communicated with a Report. A report is where all information and data related to the issue is presented in a way that it can be evaluated for its completeness and level of thoughtfulness. Like 4.3 if we are going to act on something there better be good clean data about it.
4.5. Documentation is the most Measurable Aspect of what someone has done for the company.  I can measure a Contribution of Someone to their Contribution to the Body of Knowledge of a Company. Basically i would fire or value someone based on what they have contributed. It should be the measure of any Supervisor or Higher. Anyone below that is measured by their KPI (documented by those of a higher level of responsibility)
4.6. Good Documentation can Make or Break a company. Good Documentation of FUCKED UP SHIT will destroy the company’s reputation. Good documentation of good practice will make the company a Shining example of professionalism. Since it measures the Company – We fucking should be doing it everyday.
4.7. Expertise or Usefulness is only as Good as the Access to it. If someone is so skilled but his expertise is inaccessible (he/she is a terrible communicator or documentation or teacher)

there are a a ton more of rules of thumb that has developed when we see problems in the company, and are working to address it.

There was an incidents of an IT manager of a subcontracting company which has No policies, Procedures, reports etc.. He acted like a Level 1 tech support while being paid as manager. If it was under my jurisdiction I would have had My IT Audit their company since they serve our. I would have grounds to fire them if they didn’t maintain an Auditable Process and Policies. This is in light that they’ve had 3 ransomware attacks in 1 YEAR.

5. More Certain about what a Good Company looks like. More Certain = more Passionate, and less patient with people who contribute to the problem and more compassion with those trapped in a Broken System. You will notice that I have terribly little patience for people who are the leaders of their groups and set the Behavioral Pace and Standard.