Thought Patterns

Questions of the week:??How did you associate the pipeline problem?with?Scorecard Day? What surrounding thoughts or patterns helped you make that connection, and what solutions did you consider?

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How did you associate the pipeline problem?with?Scorecard Day? What surrounding thoughts or patterns helped you make that connection, and what solutions did you consider?

I shared the story from the book The Parable of the Pipeline by Burke Hedges to help the team understand the value of a system.

I ask the team to solve the below problem.

Pipeline Problem

One 1-inch pipeline connects the lake water to the village, supplying 100 litres per hour.

New Water Demand:?

400 litres per hour

We discussed all the solutions and their pros and cons. One of the solutions that would be easier is creating 3 more pipelines, especially when it comes to software products.

It will be difficult to answer how did I arrive at the solution. This is a loaded question.

Before I answer, understand the different stages before you can master the practice. I will not go into each one of them, but I will share my learning journey with systems.

Each stage has a different level. For instance, I am a master with level 10 in creating systems like the Scorecard system, but I may not be able to make a similar system in Tesla or SpaceX. But it doesn't matter because for us, Scorecard System has already created money from two different clients, and that's what matters the most.

1. See - I saw a system video of Fog Creek Software by Joel Spolsky

2. Read - The book E-Myth Revisited (you can brain hack into me)

3. Learn - Applied in personal time management system (Get it Done)

4. Grasp - Built a simple self-scoring system at 73bit

5. Try - To transform the manual hiring system into an online assessment

6. Apply - Introducing Scrum to 73bit with external help

7. Practice - Culture Call System (with multiple moving parts)

8. Adapt - Failed in the teaching System, so create a Scorecard Day

9. Refine - Yet to do

10. Embed - Yet to do

11. Master - Partly doing by assessing other systems in 73bit

12. Model - Yet to do

13. Teach - Partly doing in 1-on-1

14. Expand - Yet to do

15. Innovate - Yet to do

No one can predict the future, but you can become surprisingly skilled at anticipating where things are headed with practice.

I have a guiding compass that a system must be

? Simple

? Easy

? Clear

? Less

? Fast

So whenever there is an interesting idea, I ask myself how I can apply the idea to 73bit.

The pipeline story was already an analogy that could be used to teach the System to anybody. I also mentioned it in previous culture calls.

Now, after the recent disaster that stole 2 months from us and derailed Scorecard Day. Including me choosing the wrong method to intervene in the situation, which further caused more problems.

I took a step back and focused on how I could easily teach the lesson to the team as fast as I could.

I was clear about Simple Scorecard automation's mistakes compared to Starter Scorecard. I reverse-engineered it and created a pipeline problem for the team. It was designed to have multiple solutions, and one of the expectations was to share all solutions and you pick one (your recommendation).

The simplest thing I could think about increasing the size of the scorecard was increasing water flow.

In regards to picking the solution out of the 3 popular ones

a) Adding pressure by the pumping system

b) Increasing pipe size to 4 inches

c) Adding 3 more 1-inch pipes

I went with the less number of steps required in all areas:

? Less hard

? Less delay

? Less steps

? Less effort

? Less changes

? Less surprises

? Less new skills

? Less ambiguity

? Less new things

? Less assumption

? Less interruption

? Less complexity

? Less mental load

I think you get the idea. Even if you do simple mental mathematics, you can see why adding 3 more 1-inch pipes could be the fastest way to bring the outcome.

Maybe a little bit of luck was on my side because I was thoroughly prepared, going through all possible combinations; the software has built-in leverage of copy-paste to increase speed and a clear objective of what makes more money for 73bit.

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