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One of my favorite stories about processes and documentation: - Work at a hedge fund - Every evening, the whole firm "cycles" to start the next trading day -

One of my favorite stories about processes and documentation: - Work at a hedge fund - Every evening, the whole firm "cycles" to start the next trading day - Step 7 of 18 fails - I document Step 7 and then show it to a bunch of folks - I end up having a meeting where I say: "Two things are true: 1. You all agree that Step 7 is incorrectly documented. 2. You all DISAGREE on what Step 7 should be doing" I love this story as it highlights that JUST WRITING DOWN what's happening can be a giant leap forward in terms of getting people to agree on what the process actually IS. If you don't write it down, everyone may go on basing decisions on an incorrect understanding of the system. A related story: "As I was writing the documentation on our market data system, multiple people told me 'You don't need to do that, it's not that complicated'. Then they read the final document and said 'Oh, I guess it is pretty complicated' "

Telaneo 11mo ago
I've been in discussions about Step 7, and my god, the experience was soul crushing. Even more soul crushing was that the result of that discussion was to not document Step 7, because doing that might enforce the idea of what it should be for and why it should be done. Writing stuff down is great since it provides a baseline to agree upon, and later additions to the team will take it as given and not start to discuss minutiae and bog down discussions into nothingness. And if some point really is worth discussing, it shouldn't be hard to find support to change it. I've heard some wild misunderstandings of how things were based on how they were being done, and now I never want to do anything of any significant size without there being a clear and obvious process to it.
- alexpotato 11mo ago
  > the result of that discussion was to not document Step 7, because doing that might enforce the idea of what it should be for and why it should be done. In Charlie Beckwith's book about Delta Force [0] there is a line where he says (paraphrasing): "The SAS never wanted to write down what their role was and what tasks they were trained for. Why? Because they didn't want to get pigeon holed into a role. ... They also never wrote down their SOPs b/c the argument was that 'if you can't keep it in your head, you shouldn't be in the Regiment'. At Delta, we were going to write down our mission AND write down our SOPs." 0 - https://amzn.to/4ahIAJV https://amzn.to/4ahIAJV
  - Telaneo 11mo ago
    For a force whose goals can change at any moment, this seems pretty reasonable. The SAS shouldn't be trained for anything in partucular, but rather for anything and everything. Not to mention that in the SAS you have a commanding offiser who can overrule if needed. Step 7 in a process which already has defined end-goals though? The fact that there were disagreements in the first place baffled me. The fact that it was impossible to write anything down about it without invoking heaven's wrath made me quit.
Waterluvian 11mo ago
What drives me nuts is how many people can’t separate those two tasks/projects. We’re going to write down what Step 7 currently is/does. No, now is not the time to start discussing what it ought to do. Please let us just get through sorting out what Step 7 currently is. Yes, some people do it differently. That’s why we hit a snag. Let’s just pick one of those wrong ways, document it, and do it all wrong together. We’ll fix it as a separate step. Now isn’t the time to fix it, as much as it feels like a convenient time to.
- gishh 11mo ago
  Yeesh. I’ve never worked with a smart group of people who came to that conclusion. That sounds toxic. :(
  - alwa 11mo ago
    Which way sounds toxic—wanting to get it right now that they’ve become aware it’s a problem? Or getting something down now, as close as possible to what happened yesterday and the day before, to unblock the larger process—then refining it after the fires are out? Seems like horses for courses to me: I can imagine my very happy healthy teams needing to operate in either mode, depending on the specific problem. I also can imagine us needing the person closest to the problem to tell us which direction applies. (To your point though, I also can imagine that any type of pressures like these would really bring out the dysfunction in “toxic” teams.)
    - gishh 11mo ago
      > Or getting something down now, as close as possible to what happened yesterday and the day before, to unblock the larger process—then refining it after the fires are out? In my experience, the refining never happens.
      - danaris 11mo ago
        But at least, in that scenario, the process is unblocked. The other way, you've blocked the process until every subcommittee of the committee assigned to fix the process has delivered their Final Report Draft 8 FINAL (1) (13) (1).docx. And that could be preventing an entire department from working at all.
BinaryIgor 11mo ago
Writing is such a powerful and often underrated and underutilized tool; I don't think it's an overstatement to say that it's at par with fire and should be in the top 5 of all-time humanity inventions/discoveries.
hammock 11mo ago
Your story and the article’s thesis that AI is for acceleration and automation (not other things like design/intelligence) remind me of one particular CEO’s five step product process: 1) design smart(er) requirements- I.e beat up the ask and rewrite the problem statement correctly. 1B is every requirement has a persons name attached who is traceable/responsible for its inclusion- not a department. 2) delete features you don’t need or which are hedges (if you aren’t adding back 10% of the time, then you aren’t deleting enough) 3) simplify or optimize. This step must come after 1 and 2 so you aren’t wasting effort optimizing the wrong thing 4) accelerate 5) automate This way is very clear where AI plugs in- and more importantly, WHEN it plugs in. Also, plenty of times people try to run this process backwards, with poor outcomes.
MengerSponge 11mo ago
Feynman's Algorithm: Write down the problem. Think very hard. Write down the solution.

Telaneo 11mo ago

I've been in discussions about Step 7, and my god, the experience was soul crushing. Even more soul crushing was that the result of that discussion was to not document Step 7, because doing that might enforce the idea of what it should be for and why it should be done. Writing stuff down is great since it provides a baseline to agree upon, and later additions to the team will take it as given and not start to discuss minutiae and bog down discussions into nothingness. And if some point really is worth discussing, it shouldn't be hard to find support to change it. I've heard some wild misunderstandings of how things were based on how they were being done, and now I never want to do anything of any significant size without there being a clear and obvious process to it.

alexpotato 11mo ago
> the result of that discussion was to not document Step 7, because doing that might enforce the idea of what it should be for and why it should be done. In Charlie Beckwith's book about Delta Force [0] there is a line where he says (paraphrasing): "The SAS never wanted to write down what their role was and what tasks they were trained for. Why? Because they didn't want to get pigeon holed into a role. ... They also never wrote down their SOPs b/c the argument was that 'if you can't keep it in your head, you shouldn't be in the Regiment'. At Delta, we were going to write down our mission AND write down our SOPs." 0 - https://amzn.to/4ahIAJV https://amzn.to/4ahIAJV
- Telaneo 11mo ago
  For a force whose goals can change at any moment, this seems pretty reasonable. The SAS shouldn't be trained for anything in partucular, but rather for anything and everything. Not to mention that in the SAS you have a commanding offiser who can overrule if needed. Step 7 in a process which already has defined end-goals though? The fact that there were disagreements in the first place baffled me. The fact that it was impossible to write anything down about it without invoking heaven's wrath made me quit.

Waterluvian 11mo ago

What drives me nuts is how many people can’t separate those two tasks/projects. We’re going to write down what Step 7 currently is/does. No, now is not the time to start discussing what it ought to do. Please let us just get through sorting out what Step 7 currently is. Yes, some people do it differently. That’s why we hit a snag. Let’s just pick one of those wrong ways, document it, and do it all wrong together. We’ll fix it as a separate step. Now isn’t the time to fix it, as much as it feels like a convenient time to.

gishh 11mo ago
Yeesh. I’ve never worked with a smart group of people who came to that conclusion. That sounds toxic. :(
- alwa 11mo ago
  Which way sounds toxic—wanting to get it right now that they’ve become aware it’s a problem? Or getting something down now, as close as possible to what happened yesterday and the day before, to unblock the larger process—then refining it after the fires are out? Seems like horses for courses to me: I can imagine my very happy healthy teams needing to operate in either mode, depending on the specific problem. I also can imagine us needing the person closest to the problem to tell us which direction applies. (To your point though, I also can imagine that any type of pressures like these would really bring out the dysfunction in “toxic” teams.)
  - gishh 11mo ago
    > Or getting something down now, as close as possible to what happened yesterday and the day before, to unblock the larger process—then refining it after the fires are out? In my experience, the refining never happens.
    - danaris 11mo ago
      But at least, in that scenario, the process is unblocked. The other way, you've blocked the process until every subcommittee of the committee assigned to fix the process has delivered their Final Report Draft 8 FINAL (1) (13) (1).docx. And that could be preventing an entire department from working at all.

BinaryIgor 11mo ago

Writing is such a powerful and often underrated and underutilized tool; I don't think it's an overstatement to say that it's at par with fire and should be in the top 5 of all-time humanity inventions/discoveries.

hammock 11mo ago

Your story and the article’s thesis that AI is for acceleration and automation (not other things like design/intelligence) remind me of one particular CEO’s five step product process: 1) design smart(er) requirements- I.e beat up the ask and rewrite the problem statement correctly. 1B is every requirement has a persons name attached who is traceable/responsible for its inclusion- not a department. 2) delete features you don’t need or which are hedges (if you aren’t adding back 10% of the time, then you aren’t deleting enough) 3) simplify or optimize. This step must come after 1 and 2 so you aren’t wasting effort optimizing the wrong thing 4) accelerate 5) automate This way is very clear where AI plugs in- and more importantly, WHEN it plugs in. Also, plenty of times people try to run this process backwards, with poor outcomes.

MengerSponge 11mo ago

Feynman's Algorithm: Write down the problem. Think very hard. Write down the solution.