I would have liked to see the initial organizing process. I would love to see an example of this way of organizing meetings/conversations.

On the point that Jabe was exploring about peoples varying desires or tolerances for structure/direction/checklist. I agree strongly with Cory that part of it individual differences. I think there are also two other factors a play.

The easiest to dispense with the role of education. Most of us in the US, and maybe the world over, are trained for many years, often through undergraduate, that success is about discovering the right way to do it and matching the instructor/graders expectation. I think the fact that Jabe’s background is in fine art might point to some different experiences in that regard.

The greater challenge is in dealing with different levels of expertise. One thing that I take to be a universal truth is that there is a stage in all learning where the learner must operate in a rule-based fashion. Call it the Dreyfus model or Shu Ha Ri or whatever. Failure to offer rules or process or practice strikes me as a failure of instruction.

On a philosophical note, we can’t invent everything from scratch. Are artists expected to invent perspective each individually by themselves? I was reading recently about someone who tried to make a toaster from scratch (I think as part of a Design PhD) and gave it up as too difficult.

I’m looking forward to the future episodes.

Best,
Don

Process note:
Where did the 18 minutes come from? It felt to me like you weren’t done.

Technical note:
The embedded video is being clipped on the right by the right hand column on the site. It doesn’t fit into the content column. This is on Chrome on Win7 desktop.

Technical wish:
It might be useful if comments on the blog could somehow be linked or reflected to, in, or with, comments on youtube.

srsly: good post nice to see the “K-man” mentioned, too. Two other quotes from him that I think are appropriate to your topic:

“If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure, and structure alone.”

and one of my favs:
“There are two ways to slice easily thorugh life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.”

mamund

I am reminded of the observation that there is a reason that “work to rule” is a labor action against management.

Kudos on bringing up General Semantics. I am often amazed when system builders are not interesting in being careful in their own language. What is programming about if it isn’t being precise in our meanings?

I wonder if it might be more trenchant to say “all process is at best an attempt to help.” I was watching Dan North’s Fallacy of Efficency talk recently on Vimeo from OreDev. He has a quote that he attributes to Virginia Satir – “Everyone is trying to help.” That certainly resonates for me.

I totally agree on need for failure. I’m listening to the audio version of Syed’s Bounce and he talks a lot about deliberate practice, which entails a lot of deliberate failure.

I think one of the challenges with this approach is that in organizations, there is not always a sufficiently shared sense of what constitutes a little non-destructive explosion.

Best,
Don

Cheers,

Ruben

I don’t know much, but the processes that I’ve designed that seem to work don’t focus on steps. They focus on goals. They break down “success” into a series of attainable goals. This seems to resonate. And it has significantly improved our business.

- Bob @FlowchainSensei

We want to avoid Cargo Cult mentality and replace it by understanding and appreciation of the organization culture. The organization will then evolve to figure out the appropriate practices.

Hope I got it right Jim.

Thanks