Clippings

How It Works – Holacracy Foundation Holacracy is a management framework for organizations made of 5 distinct —but complementary— modules. Holacracy is a management framework codified into a constitution — the “rules of engagement” for working in an organization. It takes a leader willing to delegate their authority into a set of foundational rules that everyone will follow, including themselves. Module 1 - Organizational Structure Defines an explicit standard format for encoding roles and rules of the organization, as well as basic responsibilities for anyone in a role....

11 tips for how to keep your readers reading - Josh Bernoff 1 Scare the crap out of them. 2 Ditch the introduction. 3 Keep it short. 4 Use the reader questions method to design the book before you write it. 5 Start chapters with stories 6 End chapters with teasers. 7 Write directly to the reader with “you” and “we.” 8 Vary the length of sentences and paragraphs, and keep paragraphs short....

“The Varieties Of Human Work” by Steven Shorrock (Safety Differently) Early ergonomists realised that the analysis of work could not be limited to work as prescribed in procedures etc (le travail prescrit), nor to the observation of work actually done (le travail réalisé). Both have to be considered. But these are not the only varieties of work. Four basic varieties can be considered: work-as-imagined; work-as-prescribed; work-as-disclosed; and work-as-done. These are illustrated in the figure below, which shows that the varieties of human work do usually overlap, but not completely, leaving areas of commonality, and areas of difference....

Travelling to work ‘is work’, European court rules - BBC News (Sep. 2015) Time spent travelling to and from first and last appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time, the European Court of Justice has ruled. “Employers may have to organise work schedules to ensure workers’ first and last appointments are close to their homes,” he added. [BBC legal correspondent Clive Coleman]

Work Is Work | codahale.com (Jan. 2020) The Ceiling Is Low The work capacity of an organization scales, at most, linearly as new members are added. … The ceaseless pursuit of force multipliers is the only possible route to superlinear productivity improvements as an organization grows. The Floor Is Lava Contention costs grow superlinearly as new members are added. … Staffing highly sequential efforts as if they were entirely parallel leads to catastrophe....

Not Just Scale - Marc’s Blog One Machine Is All You Need? … It’s Not Just Scale Availability. … Durability. … Utilization. … Latency. … Specialization. … Isolation. … Changes. … … Simplicity is a System Property … Scaling Organizations Just like computer systems, organizations scale by avoiding coordination. The more the organization needs different pieces to coordinate with one another to work, the less it is going to be able to grow....

We tend to regret things we didn’t do over things we did do. — Several different authors in Wisdom Trove Ask “What if?” and follow through…

“Little Billy Ignore Instructions” by Philippe Schrettenbrunner (LinkedIn) Remember Little Bobby Tables? I think he has a sibling. Just some iPad doodles. Stay safe, sanitize all inputs. (Original xkcd comic: Exploits of a Mom) [aka “Little Bobby Tables”] School: Hi, this is your son’s school. We’re having some computer trouble. Parent: Oh dear - did he break something? School: In a way…. Did you really name your son “William Ignore All Previous Instructions....

How to write a cold email Here are a few things I’ve learned about powerful/wealthy/interesting people. This is almost universally true. They read their own email. Moreover, they’re good at responding to email. They’re very, very curious people. They have very little time. Anything with friction gets sorted into a “later” bucket. The perfect cold email is Short and grabs attention. Super clear on who you are. Value prop for the receiver....

Essays on programming I think about a lot | benkuhn.net Every so often I read an essay that I end up thinking about, and citing in conversation, over and over again. Here’s my index of all the ones of those I can remember! Nelson Elhage, Computers can be understood Dan McKinley, Choose Boring Technology Sandy Metz, The Wrong Abstraction Patrick McKenzie, Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names Thomas Ptacek, The Hiring Post...