Here's the slide-deck on pair-programming I recently presented for a client.
Showing posts with label observing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label observing. Show all posts
observing
Back to quotes table-of-contents
From The Psychology of Computer Programming
From Toyota Production System
From The Way of the Leader
From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
From Non Violent Communcation
From Wit and Wisdom from Poor Richard's Almanac
From The Mind of War
From Quality Software Management. Vol 2. First-Order Measurement
From An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
From Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
From The Book of Five Rings
From Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
From General Principles of Systems Design
If egoless programming is used, everyone in the group will have the opportunity to examine the work of everyone else at some time, thereby tending to prevent the establishment of strong hierarchy.
From Toyota Production System
Sometimes I would spend all day watching the grandmother next door weaving. I came to understand the way the weaving machine worked. [Toyoda Sakichi]
Stand on the production floor all day and watch - you will eventually discover what has to be done. I cannot emphasize this point too much.
From The Way of the Leader
Listen carefully. Observe closely.
From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
By far the greatest part of his [the mechanic's] work is careful observation and precise thinking.
From Non Violent Communcation
Observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.
From Wit and Wisdom from Poor Richard's Almanac
Observe all men; thyself most.
From The Mind of War
He observed very carefully.
From Quality Software Management. Vol 2. First-Order Measurement
In the end, it's not the observation that counts, it's the response to the observation. That's why Zen masters teach patience in response.
What power corrupts most thoroughly is the ability to make meaning of observations.
No other observational skill may be more important to software engineering than precision listening.
The switch from cost observation to value observation is the strongest indication that an organization has made the transition from Pattern 2 [Routine] to Pattern 3 [Steering].
A fact becomes a feeling as soon as you observe it.
From An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
We drive more slowly at night to give us more time to observe potentially dangerous situations.
From Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.
From The Book of Five Rings
You should observe reflectively, with overall awareness of the large picture a well as precise attention to small details.
From Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
Much of perception is based on prediction.
From General Principles of Systems Design
Complexity is a relationship between system and observer.
Slack
is the title of an excellent book by Tom DeMarco.
This second snippet
(here's the first)
continues my tactic of rereading good books several times.
As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
Talented managers are ... all sense organ, constantly attuned to the effect their leadership is having on their people ... Managers without such talent find themselves relying on formulas and "principles" of management. They reason, "This thing I'm trying to do should work; the fact that it isn't working probably suggests that I'm doing it half-heartedly." And so they do more of whatever they've been doing.
When the new automation is in place, there is less total work to be done by the human worker, but what work is left is harder. That is the paradox of automation: It makes the work harder, not easier.
In my experience, standard processes for knowledge work are almost always empty at their center.
The power you've granted is the power to err. If that person messes up, you take the consequences. Looked at from the opposite perspective, it is this capacity to injure the person above you that makes empowerment work.
When there is neither time nor staff to cope with work that runs more slowly than expected, then the cost of lateness is paid out of quality. There is no other degree of freedom.
... voluminous documentation of everything that will hold still for it.
Successful change can only come about in the context of a clear understanding of what may never change, what the organization stands for... the organization's culture... If nothing is declared unchangeable, then the organization will resist all change. When there is no defining vision, the only way the organization can define itself is its stasis.
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
By far the greatest part of his [the mechanic's] work is careful observation and precise thinking.
Care and Quality are internal and external aspects of the same thing. A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who's bound to have some characteristics of Quality.
As Poincaré would have said, there are an infinite number of facts about the motorcycle, and the right ones don't just dance up and introduce themselves. The right facts, the ones we really need, are not only passive, they are damned elusive and we're not going to just sit back and "observe" them. We're going to have to be in there looking for them or we're going to be here a long time. Forever. As Poincaré pointed out, there must be a subliminal choice of what facts we observe. The difference between a good mechanic and a bad one, like the difference between a good mathematician and a bad one, is precisely this ability to select the good facts from the bad ones on the basis of quality. He has to care!
That's really why he got so upset that day when he couldn't get his engine started. It was an intrusion into his reality.
The range of human knowledge today is so great that we're all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him.
This isn't really a small town. People are moving too fast and too independently of one another.
I've a set of instructions at home which open up great realms for the improvement of technical writing. They begin, 'Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind.'
Peace of mind isn't at all superficial really, I expound. It's the whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an objectification of this peace of mind. The ultimate test's always your own serenity. If you don't have this when you start and maintain it while you're working you're likely to build your personal problems right into the machine itself.
There is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see.
It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.
It is not the facts but the relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the sole objective reality.
Always take the old part with you to prevent getting a wrong part.
Impatience is close to boredom but always results from one cause: an underestimation of the amount of time the job will take.
Mu means "no thing". Like "Quality" it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination. Mu simply says, "No class; not one; not zero, not yes, not no." It states that the context of the question is such that a yes or no answer is an error and should not be given. "Unask the question" is what it says. Mu becomes appropriate when the context of the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer.
Apart from bad tools, bad surroundings are a major gumption trap.
Religion isn't invented by man. Men are invented by religion.
When handling precision parts that are stuck or difficult to manipulate, a person with mechanic's feel will avoid damaging the surfaces and work with his tools on the nonprecision surfaces of the same part whenever possible. If he must work on the surfaces themselves, he'll always use softer surfaces to work with them. ... Handle precision parts gently.
Want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That's the way all experts do it.
The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.
non violent communcation
Observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence.
NVC is a process language that discourages static generalizations; instead, evaluations are to be based on observations specific to time and context.
In the sentence, "I feel I didn't get a fair deal," the words I feel could be more accurately replaced with I think.
When the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens.
Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.
I had read research indicating a lack of agreement among psychiatrists and psychologists regarding these terms. The reports concluded that diagnoses of patients in mental hospitals depended more upon the school the psychiatrists had attended than the characteristics of the patients themselves.
When we have a judgemental dialogue going on within, we become alienated from what we are needing and cannot then act to meet those needs. Depression is indicative of a state of alienation from our own needs.
Studies in labor-management negotiations demonstrate that the time required to reach conflict resolution is cut in half when each negotiator agrees, before responding, to accurately repeat what the previous speaker had said.
Don't just do something, stand there.
When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion.
stuka pilot
is an excellent book by Hans Ulrich Rudel (isbn 978-1908476876). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
He tells me that a large scale offensive is in preparation in my sector... approximately three hundred tanks are to be employed in this operation... The number three hundred flabbergasts me... I reply that I find some difficulty in believing it... He says to me, half in earnest, half in jest: "If I didn't know you, for two pins I would have you put under arrest for saying such a thing. But we will soon find out." He goes to the telephone and is connected with the Chief of the General Staff. "You have just given the Fuhrer the figure of three hundred tanks for operation X." "Yes I did." "I want to know the names of the divisions concerned with their present strength in tanks. I have somebody with me who is well acquainted with the position." ... the Chief of the General Staff has the bad luck to begin with the 14th armoured division. He says it has sixty tanks. Goering can hardly contain himself. "My man reports that the 14th has one!" A lengthy silence at the other end of the line. "When did he leave the front?" "Four days ago." Again silence. Then "Forty tanks are still on their way to the front. The rest are in repair shops on the line of communications, but will certainly reach their units by zero day, so that the figures are correct." He has the same answer for the other divisions. The Reichsmarschall slams down the receiver in a rage. "That is how it is!" The Fuhrer is given a totally false picture based on incorrect data and is surprised when operations do not have the success expected... The South Eastern zone with its network of communications is being incessantly blanketed by the enemy's bomber formations. Who knows how many of those forty tanks, for example, will ever reach the front or when? Who can say if the repair shops will get their spare parts in time and if they will be able to complete their repairs within the specified time?
In ministries and departments, however, mistakes are denied on principle.
Another confirmation of the truth of our old Stuka maxim: "Nothing comes off - except what you have practised."
We have long since ceased to develop practice from theory; we do just the opposite.
The fitters have their hands full, for the aircraft have been heavily damaged by flak. The life of such an aeroplane will always be limited.
Little by little I discover all the tricks. Skill is often the result of getting hurt.
I now see that perfectly plainly. We are alone to possess this knowledge; the responsibility is ours.
the mind of war
…in order to determine the consistency of any new system we must construct or uncover another system beyond it… One cannot determine the character or nature of a system within itself. Moreover, attempts to do so lead to confusion and disorder.
he was always testing the limits - of airplanes, people, science, the military, and, most especially, bureaucracies.
In dozens of interviews, conducted for this book, the most consistent theme and nearly universal comment was that John Boyd was the essence of an honourable man and incorruptible.
Oral, not written, communication and conviction, not accuracy, still rule in military culture.
Boyd liked putting things together (synthesis) better than analysis (taking things apart)...
He also came to appreciate the routine practice and repetition that was required to become really good at something and to overcome the boredom by focusing on minute improvements.
He observed very carefully.
Boyd could go from 500 knots to stall speed, practically stopping the plane in midair, which would force any aircraft on his tail to overshoot him and thus gain the advantage for Boyd. In another trick, he would stand the F-100 on its tail and slide down the pillar of its own exhaust. Fire would come out of the intake in the nose of the aircraft and the tailpipe simultaneously. A seemingly impossible feat, it was challenged by others. Boyd when to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where NASA had two fully instrumented F-100 aircraft, and demonstrated it and other techniques to a series of nonbelievers. The test pilot at Edwards who challenged him at the time was a fellow by the name of Neil Armstrong.
Boyd had never designed an airplane before, but as he told Colonel Ricci and Gen. Casey Dempsey, "I could fuck up and do better than this."
The rule of thumb in the Air Force is that a plane will gain a pound of weight a day for the life of the aircraft.
High entropy implies a low potential for doing work, a low capacity for taking action or a high degree of confusion or disorder… The tendency is for entropy to increase in a system that is closed or cannot communicate with the external systems or environments.
A natural teacher, he understood that if he told you something, he robbed you of the opportunity to ever truly know it for yourself.
We are never deceived. We only deceive ourselves. [Goethe]
Boyd's dictum: "Ask for my loyalty and I'll give you my honesty. Ask for my honesty and you'll have my loyalty."
practice and observation
I want to get better at speycasting. I need to know how I'm currently doing and what aspects of my casting to pay attention to next. Those are exactly what I don't know. To make rapid progress I need the help of another person - someone who is both an expert at speycasting and also an expert at teaching speycasting. In my case that person is Gary Scott (who took this short video).
I've no doubt there are masses of faults in my casting technique. That's irrelevant and not helpful and does not deter me at all. What counts is working towards some improvement in the next video.
surfing the edge of chaos
As a general rule, adults are much more likely to act their way into a new way of thinking than to think their way into a new way of acting.
Recent study of evolution, both in the natural world and in computer based complex systems, has demonstrated the surprising result that the presence of parasites in a system accelerates evolution dramatically.
The average corporation lives only half as long as the average human being.
The defining feature of a complex adaptive system is its ability to learn.
As the process unfolded, employees repeatedly asked Shapiro to give a more definitive shape to his "vision". He refused to do so. "It will only get in the way," he countered. "People will take it too seriously."
Because we thought our job was to persuade, too often we forgot to listen.
How a system connects with its "external" world is also a key source of that system's health.
Feedback is the means by which a system talks to itself.
Bacteria require three years to circumvent the latest antibiotic; viruses typically outmaneuver vaccines within a year.
Critical to the impact of the [National Training Center] experience is a cadre of 600 instructors, one of whom is assigned to every person with leadership or supervisory responsibilities. These "observers/controllers," as they are called, shadow their counterparts through day after twenty-hour day of intense activity, provide personal coaching, and facilitate a team debriefing called an After Action Review (AAR).
If you awaken with sore muscles, how you feel depends a lot on whether you think you're getting the flu or you believe you are reaping the benefits of a good workout the day before.
Dancing with elves
No one can avoid influencing others. The only question is whether we are going to do it knowingly or unknowingly. Our position is that knowledge is better than ignorance.
Command-and-control tries to get 100% compliance - an impossible goal. In the name of discipline, it teaches rigidity.
The mother bird repeats the sequence over and over, with endless patience, until the children learn. You never see a mother bird attack her offspring; you never see her punish her baby for failure to learn the lesson. When the adult animal teaches their offspring, it is done by one method and that is by modelling over and over the desired behaviour.
Talking about your own experiences causes others to access their own similar experiences. I wish I could get across to you how powerful this effect is and how silently it operates.
Words have this incredible power to call up experience.
What a momentous thing you are doing when you speak words to your child or to your spouse or to any other person. You have the power to create their experience, you have the power to shape it, to make it beautiful. You can give them the experience of competence, of comfort, of success.
Somewhere between the first week of life and age forty or fifty, something rather serious happens. We stop using our feedback. We're carefully taught to pay attention to the program inside our head, instead of what's happening in the real world.
When you speak to someone, they split into two pieces. This happens all the time, to everybody. There's a part that wants to go along with what you say, and then there's a part that wants to defend their individuality, they're not going along. There's the part that agrees, and a part that disagrees, simultaneously.
It obviously doesn't make sense to demand impulse control from a little person that doesn't have it.
If you see "stubbornness" then you're naturally going to expect certain things. You're going to act in certain ways, you're going to get an interaction started that assumes this.
What does it mean when you say a person is "just lazy?" or "just stubborn?". It really means that you have tried out some of your repertoire of behavioural interventions in order to elicit a desired piece of behaviour from the other person and you have failed, because your repertoire was too limited.
Experiential Learning 2: Invention
At intervals, keep adding members from the observer corps to each team and observe how each team handles the additional members.
They were… concentrating with their eyes closed (that is, sleeping).
Everything that happens in an exercise is an experience; and every experience provides an opportunity for learning.
Let the students design a slide show of their learnings, and present it to you.
If you were to run this exercise again, with observers chosen before the exercise started, what would you instruct the observers to keep track of? How would you process those data once the exercise was finished?
If you can’t find a regular pattern of some time for self-observation, your leadership development program is in serious trouble.
Have each participant make a "sandwich board" on a large sheet of paper saying:
1) what I'm seeking in teammates
2) what I have to offer my teammates
When standing aside at some distance, we can often see what we couldn’t see up close - that the whole structure is about to collapse, and that additional work will just be wasted work.
Experiential Learning 1: Beginning
is an excellent book by Jerry Weinberg.
There's no isbn - you can buy it from Leanpub.
As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
This is a very simple exercise, but it will get people talking about process improvement.
If there is no provocation, there is no learning. ... We must first put our students into a provocative environment. We must encourage them to experiment - to play with the materials in that environment.
In many traditional courses, the only significant observation made is pass/fail on the test.
By the mathematical properties of averaging, almost all teams will perform "better" than almost all individuals - simply because they are more average. … All we are measuring is how much closer an average answer is likely to be to another average answer which is essentially a tautology.
People are more ready to accept your facts than your opinions, so be very careful to separate observation (news) from interpretation and significance.
Be patient with silence. Usually a long silence comes just before a breakthrough idea.
Different people on each team learned different things from the same trial of the same exercise. This is characteristic of well designed and well led experiential exercises.
Leaders are not in complete control of what participants are going to learn. Are you going to be able to live with that?
The strongest way to achieve safety in experiential exercises is by making clear that every exercise is optional. If someone doesn't want to participate, they are always free to step aside without explaining their reasons, and without any attempts to persuade or cajole. If someone wishes to opt out, then the learning leader should invite them to take an observer role, but they may opt out of that, too.
You can't just pop experiential exercises at people regardless of the context, so pay special attention to the very first exercise you do with a group.
There must be a bazillion ways to form teams, but we've tried only half of them.
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