December, 2008

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19
Dec 08

Eliminate Bureaucracy

Zen Habits is one of those sites that publishes frequently, and at length. The signal-to-noise ratio tends to be low, but every once in a while a post comes through with a bit in it and I think: yes. yes. EXACTLY! 

This is one of those pieces. A lot of fluff (and I do so hate list-as-article posts), but there are a couple items that really rung true for me in their post 10 Steps to Take Action and Eliminate Bureaucracy.

Are there any “yes! exactly!” items in the post that you think would eliminate bureaucracy?

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17
Dec 08

Real Advise Hurts

Mr. Mann, talks about the over abundance of tips online in Real Advise Hurts:

In more instances than we want to admit, tips not only won’t (and can’t) help us to improve; they will actively get in the way of fundamental improvement by obscuring the advice we need with the advice that we enjoy. And, the advice that’s easy to take is so rarely the advice that could really make a difference.

A tip is like…what? A little scrap of a map. Not only is it not the actual destination, but the part you can hold in your hand will only make sense when you understand its place in a much bigger picture.

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15
Dec 08

Agile: Valuable from the Start

A List Apart, Getting Real About Agile Design

Agile is here to stay. The economic difficulties of the past months have finally put waterfall out of its misery; now more than ever, long requirements phases and vaporous up-front documentation aren’t acceptable. Software must be visible and valuable from the start.

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13
Dec 08

Implement the Idea

Gruber pens his overriding guideline for iPhone UI design

Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience.

I for one, say that is excellent advice for just about anything: from corporate polices, routine procedures, desktop software and web pages – it fits. Don’t be mislead though. This is far from easy. 

Gruber further considers:

You want to get it right because getting it right can make everything easier thereafter. But really, it’s because getting it wrong can be devastating. You might wind up putting thousands of man hours of work into a project that was doomed by a decision that was made in a second at the inception.

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11
Dec 08

Delete email when you are on vacation

Merlin writes about reading email when you get back from vacation:

Well, if you’re like most people, you deleted a lot of the messages without even reading them. Right? Or, what? You spent 2 or 3 days reading and responding to everything? Even while new (and inarguably more salient) stuff piled up? Right. Smart.

So, maybe you prefer to think of it as mismanaging expectations. Because you feel guilty about just ignoring everything you implied you’d do something about, and you still feel the pressure to do something with all of it — even if it’s just responding with a template or writing back to say how busy you are, and, Sorry! but I’m still getting to this. SORRY!

Or. You could have told the truth. Don’t send me email. I won’t see it. Write me later.

The holidays are somewhat easy, because everyone is on holiday at the same time (and thus less email). But perhaps this is good advise for the upcoming spring vacations.

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