Want to Make God Laugh...

Today I noticed an automatic/intuitive/hasty impulse in my own behavior. What to do with it, I have not figured out yet, but I am very glad I spotted this blunder.

My current work reality features frequent lurches of “drop this right now and do that instead” and constant experiments with various tooling solutions to organizational/process problems. We alternate between splitting tasks in JIRA across different projects and combining them in one, constantly heroically overcoming difficulties in these processes. This is just one example. As a result, we end up with what I have already written about: problems of inexorable logic and Substituting the Problem, or the Cure Is Worse Than the Disease.

So, my mistake was that I thoughtlessly assumed the situation could be fixed by more detailed work plans and the understanding they would create of where to move next. This was an intuitive solution whose soundness and viability I did not question in the moment. In reality, it is merely an attempt to create certainty for myself within the uncertainty of the situation. Plans have no effect whatsoever on the predictability or certainty of the real world, so making more detailed plans will not solve the problem of uncertainty.

In general, trying to create certainty usually ends badly: it is a self-reinforcing feedback loop, because life does not follow our plans, and a plan’s failure creates a stronger need for certainty, which we (people in general) intuitively try to create through plans.

Here is an excellent description of this kind of problem. I will repeat the article’s conclusions here:

1. When you do not have a solid foundation, focus on creating one.
2. When you do not have a solid foundation, do not believe in the omnipotence of human plans.
3. A foundation consists of layers. Some things do not change for decades, while others do not last even a year.
4. A solid foundation lays the groundwork for experimentation, learning, and powerful coordinated efforts.

And what does all this mean in practice? This is where I still have not figured out what to do. In theory, we need to deliberately focus our attention on searching for/formulating/creating a structure for the foundational principles of our work. Define, for example, the boundaries of our work, what should count as work “in progress,” and where the entry and exit points of work are. Identify the basic needs of project roles and look for fundamental ways to satisfy them. Not all at once: find the most important one and start with it. Perhaps chains will unfold in which satisfying that need first requires finding and satisfying another need, or formulating and solving another problem. But all this has to be done; we have to think deliberately in this direction—toward making our foundation more reliable.

Without these thinking efforts and the actions that follow them, we are condemned to repeat the failures of our far-reaching plans.