Re: Work harder, not smarter

[Jo Francis Byrd <jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com>]

Andrew Plato said:

Somebody wrote something to me today that I've heard thousands of times, but it really hit me today seeing as how we're debating doc plans... Those of you seeking to find some reasoning to my intense opposition to documentation plans, single-sourcing, and a whole ton of other issues can look to this simple axiom: "There is a constant battle between doing things the right way, and doing things right."

To which Steve Hudson replied:

I guess the flipside to your rant is that I can't stand people who are
arrogant enough to think that there is no room for improvement. Its hard to
improve what you cannot (or refuse to) define. Let alone most of us are
employed by someone else who regularly wants some sort of report stating
what has been done, what is being done, and what will be done.

Plus the simplest way to improve Quality is to consistently apply a process.

Andrew also said:

You don't need a better mouse trap, you need cats that are dedicated to catching mice. When those cats are focused they will catch mice. And eventually, they will become so good at it, they will be infinitely more efficient than any mouse trap.

To which Steve retorted:

The cats end up "infinitely more efficient" purely because, on their own
back, they investigate a variety of processes for catching mice, add a
relative weighting to the methodology based on the outcome and repeat.
Sooner or later their process stabilizes and they achieve consistent results.

Now, what we are doing can't be 'remembered' / 'documented' by our
instincts - as is the case in your analogy. Thus we need to write it down.
Additionally, if its written down another set of impartial eyes can be run
over it.

To which I add my not very humble opinion:

"Doing things the right way, and doing things right" is NOT mutually 
exclusive.

"Doing it the right way," according to the rules stated in "How to write 
good" means "the passive voice should never be used." We should also 
eliminate "will" from our documentation (as in "the whatever screen will 
appear - or display," I 'm not going there) and avoid the abuse of the 
word "that" (one of my pet peeves).

Except that sometimes "doing it right" means the passive voice 
communicates the point clearly whereas active voice doesn't, sometimes 
we need to include the world "will", and sometimes "that" is also the 
best usage.

Yes, we need to use processes, we need to refine them, and investigate 
and learn new ones - but NOT at the expense of doing our jobs RIGHT. And 
this, I think, is what Andrew wanted to communicate.

Jo Byrd



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