The reason behind N=3F+1, is that F nodes may behave duplicitly. So we need ((N-F) / 2) + 1 to have it safe.

But we have f+1 for agreemend, so it will be live.

There are two versions of the calculations. The first formula is logarithmic which means a resulting score tends to increase significantly with small changes in the values of the formula components. The second one is made more user-friendly and forms a linear curve that distributes the results harmoniously.

I assessed a couple of tickets I created (90%, 50%; 80%; 90%; 90%) by these formulas. One showed 71% of cruftiness, while the other indicated 20%. I guess you could easily understand what formula I favor more. But jokes aside, I indeed think that the second formula is just more handy in understanding how quickly you’d better improve your docs.

Despite the fact that I do not think that this score should be mandatory, there is still a sense of its existence. Once measuring BA’s impact on the product is a separate topic for discussion, evaluating the artifacts prepared by BA can be a useful activity bringing us some valuable insights about how BA distributes their efforts between different activities, including documentation.

Hi! :wave: Have you ever wondered if your documentation published in Wiki attracts as much attention from readers as you think it deserves or if it is as right as your team needs? I have, and so do 50 more BAs that took part in Steve Adolph’s BBC Workshop on May 8th, 2023.

If you are with us, then let’s observe how crufted our documentation is. Huh, now you are wondering what “crufted” means, aren’t you? (Or is it just me discovering this technique recently?) Cruft is a slang word for badly designed, unnecessarily complicated, or unwanted code or software. And already back in 2007, the approach to assess cruftiness of documentation appeared.

CRUFT criteria are kinda subjective but has it ever bothered anyone when estimating tickets in story points?

Let's see what the Rock Crusher approach is.

Imagine business ideas as rocks, backlog as a stone storage container, and code-writing as a stone processing container. Rocks are mixed in sizes, different in materials, and fall from outside into the storage container unpredictably. The stones are selected from the storage by PO, and BA reshapes them into smaller-sized stones and instructs Developers how to adjust their code-writing stone-processing containers to start dealing with the material of the rocks and their size. When the next rock is selected by PO, BA splits it into a new number of pieces, and Devs re-adjust their processing containers to the new materials and sizes. And all this continues to happen with the pressure on the team to be consistent in delivery speed with unpredictable pieces of rocks.

The essence of the Rock crusher approach is in displacing the team’s focus. It should no longer be on how well the stone processing container is adjusted and how quickly the rock pieces are processed. Instead, the most attention should be paid to the pre-processing stage - to what is sent to the stone processing. These rocks-ideas should be more carefully selected, better prepared, split, groomed, combined, and assessed separately and in combination with others. That work even sounds huge and should be a team challenge and objective, there the team’s efforts should be put in.

Analysis of an idea - not development - is a focus and priority for all the team!

When some need or idea appears in the minds of business owners, it takes some time and effort to make this need addressed. Simply put, the need is analysed, then transformed into some actionable development tasks, then developed, tested, and released. There are two problems with this approach.

The first is that business ideas tend to vary in size and impact and appear much quicker than the delivery speed. The second is that the focus of the team is mostly on the implementation of the ideas, coding, and delivery.

These problems bring unclarity of priorities, excesses in backlog, instability in the team delivery, and much work on a Product Owner's or a Business Analyst's shoulders. The Rock Crusher approach knows how to fix these unwilling outcomes.

Besides the fact that this article describes indeed an interesting practice of hiring process improvement, I also see it as a great example of how to formalize the feeling of needed changes for any process, functionality, or even Objective from the OKRs list.

That's how I see the steps:

1. formulate the problem. It should not be the final, well-stated problem, just write down your concern with some background info;

2. create a Request-for-comments doc to collect suggestions from various stakeholders about how to solve your concern;

3. hold some sessions to review the comments. At this moment, it's highly possible that your understanding of the problem will expand, and suggested ideas will transform into new ones. It's time to define your strategy for problem resolution;

4. for each group of ideas, define metrics to measure the progress. Select the north star metric and its value;

5. experiment!

(1) Select stakeholders that are the most interested in the change and do not afraid of being early adapters; (2) hold impact mapping sessions and bet on some improvements to try them in the first place. Define the fundamental part of your changes; (3) validate the progress by the metrics regularly; (4) create a pipeline to visualize your progress;

1. analyze the results of the experiment. Adjust the changes made before if needed.

2. In case of positive results, spare the time for less significant changes and continue to track the progress.

🇺🇦 Meaghan Kall. (2022, January 27). NEW: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Vaccine effectiveness (symptomatic infection) data for BA.2 {Omicron’s more infectious sister} NO difference in VE between Omicron (BA.1) and BA.2 Possibly even higher VE for BA.2 but estimates overlap See full thread 🧵 from @freja_kirsebom https://t.co/bJ7uCn2cGV [Tweet]. @kallmemeg. https://twitter.com/kallmemeg/status/1486821549458001927

Freja Kirsebom. (2022, January 28). Two important updates from our team this week: - Vaccine effectiveness (VE) against symptomatic disease after Omicron BA.2 shows that VE remains unchanged—VE against death after Omicron BA.1 shows VE is 95% at 2+ weeks after booster 1/7 Full report https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1050721/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-4.pdf [Tweet]. @freja_kirsebom. https://twitter.com/freja_kirsebom/status/1486730977464369160

Tom Wenseleers. (2022, January 23). @HarrySpoelstra @trvrb @CorneliusRoemer @JosetteSchoenma BA.2 has a growth rate advantage over BA.1 of ca 0.11/day. That’s quite sizeable. If it would have the same short generation time as BA.1 of 2.2 days it would imply a ca.1.3x higher transmissibility, due to higher contagiousness or immune escape. Https://t.co/X8TcWJ4pXQ [Tweet]. @TWenseleers. https://twitter.com/TWenseleers/status/1485375883066101763

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, February 18). RT @chrischirp: Speaking of which, latest COG UK data shows that BA.2 is dominant already in NI & likely dominant within Scotland & Eng wit… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1494711071839592450

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, January 28). RT @chrischirp: BA.2 & BA.1.1 (Omicron variants) are growing in many countries. Quite what this means in terms of cases, hospitalisation… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1487066966363934720

Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD. (2022, February 7). 1: BA.2 some evidence that it’s even more transmissible than the original omicron which is more transmissible than delta, and so forth. If it takes hold like it did in Denmark it will slow the descent of original omicron here [Tweet]. @PeterHotez. https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1490669166176702466

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, March 8). RT @PeterHotez: Two US COVID trends I’m following: 1) Make sure the decline in new cases continues, 2) Screenshot from http://Outbreak.Info… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1501193920058961924

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, March 18). RT @KamranAbbasi: The rapid rise in cases of Omicron BA.2 only underlines that airborne transmission is real and dominant. This is a respir… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1505207686169862147

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, March 8). RT @DrEricDing: ⚠️UPDATE—#BA2 is now 11.6% in US, up from 8.3% last week. It’s definitely increasing, as warned. #COVID19 still dropping, b… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1501248333876240385

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, January 31). RT @fascinatorfun: Interesting as 🇩🇰 Omicron BA2 wave started sooner than 🇬🇧 “We conclude that Omicron BA.2 is inherently substantially m… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1488152457012297736

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, March 19). RT @Kit_Yates_Maths: I know this tweet is aimed at the US, but it would be great if the message about BA.2 would sink in in the UK too! [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1505210192287481857

John Roberts. (2022, January 28). Some (very) early evidence that secondary attack rates of BA.2 are higher in household settings than those of its older sibling. From the latest Variant TB 35. Https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1050999/Technical-Briefing-35-28January2022.pdf 1/ https://t.co/AFTril1jF1 [Tweet]. @john_actuary. https://twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1487086733149749251

Alastair Grant. (2022, March 9). Based on the spike gene target data from TaqPath, BA.2 made up 82% of COVID cases in England on 6th March—It has now almost taken over We know that BA.2 has higher transmission than Omicron and there are a number of examples from Denmark of BA.2 reinfection shortly after BA.1 https://t.co/rEyud8osY1 [Tweet]. @AlastairGrant4. https://twitter.com/AlastairGrant4/status/1501606060033028099

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, January 23). RT @LauraMiers: BA.2’s growth advantage over BA.1 is jarring. Meanwhile, we are operating under the assumption that “Omicron will end the p… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1485519516914302980

Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD. (2022, February 8). So it’s Groundhog Day for Covid, no BA.2 and we get an early Covid spring; if BA.2 accelerates we get 6 more weeks of Covid winter [Tweet]. @PeterHotez. https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1491144988738322433

Al Newman. (2022, March 8). @danaparish @jennybluebird2U To your point: Https://t.co/CsULpIACoI [Tweet]. @AlNewman_. https://twitter.com/AlNewman_/status/1501056062262333441

Prof. Christina Pagel 🇺🇦. (2022, March 8). What could be causing it? Likely combo of: 1—Dominant BA.2 causing more infections (we await ONS!) 2—Reduction in masks, self-isolation & testing enabling more infections 3—Waning boosters in older people esp I worry that we will be stuck at high levels for long time. 2/2 https://t.co/xZ2SLFNVkS [Tweet]. @chrischirp. https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1501250081693048838

Eric Feigl-Ding. (2022, January 23). 6) here is BA2 in Netherlands 🇳🇱—Already at 5%. HT @LongDesertTrain https://t.co/AoE1jGto03 [Tweet]. @DrEricDing. https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1485317793855778823

Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved 21 March 2022, from https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1501778936942010370

Haseltine, W. A. (n.d.). Birth Of The Omicron Family: BA.1, BA.2, BA.3. Each As Different As Alpha Is From Delta. Forbes. Retrieved 30 March 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2022/01/26/birth-of-the-omicron-family-ba1-ba2-ba3-each-as-different-as-alpha-is-from-delta/

Open practices are, indeed, continually negotiated. This is another way of looking at openness - that doing things in the open leave them in a contingent state. i.e. openness as the opposite of 'closure'. Perhaps then what we need is to create structures for teaching and learning that enable this kind of contingency - the ability to review and re-negotiate what we are doing and how we are doing it? This is a form of metacognitive learning on a personal and organisational level. Each teacher/learner needs to be able to observe the system they are in and negotiate how to change it as they proceed. In my own OEP, I do this, this way:

"Nonaka’s and Takeuchi’s practical adaptation of ‘Nishida philosophy’ – their SECI model of organisational knowledge creation – proposes everything is implaced within a “ba” (field). Such Ba can be physical or conceptual. We can think of the basho as a shifting context (such as being a student in a University) or set of moving constraints (like the rules of a game). Either way, what we do / what we are is something implaced within a larger field.

When it comes to learning, a key thing here is to think less not only about how and where we implace ourselves, but equally about what sort of field we are generating. Ba/sho is akin to a habitat; habits develop in relation to specific habitats. If we want to change our habits, we need to also change our habitat. In ‘Nishida philosophy’ subject and object are one, people and environment correlate." Source: Neil Mulholland Build-A-Basho | Thursday 23rd September 2021

CBC Podcasts. (2022, February 3). Today on #TheDoseCBC: a frank discussion about the new #Omicron sub-variant with virologist @angie_rasmussen, who says BA.2 isn’t necessarily more pathogenic—But we need to proceed with caution. Learn more: Http://bit.ly/3gnlPak https://t.co/NOp7MMwkwk [Tweet]. @cbcpodcasts. https://twitter.com/cbcpodcasts/status/1489315238822490118

Coronavirus infections remain high while Omicron ‘stealth variant’ rises—REACT | Imperial News | Imperial College London. (n.d.). Imperial News. Retrieved 22 March 2022, from https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/234517/coronavirus-infections-remain-high-while-omicron/

Mahase, E. (2022). Covid-19: Is the UK heading for another omicron wave? BMJ, 376, o738. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o738

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, March 11). RT @dgurdasani1: UKHSA tech report out—TL;DR: -BA.2 now represents >80% of omicron in England -Growth rate 80% greater relative to BA.1 p… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1502598815081275393

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, March 6). RT @JPWeiland: BA.2 projections in the US: Coming off of the massive omicron wave (Rt=0.64) will provide a lot of immunity to restrict B… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1500489703472222208

ReconfigBehSci. (2022, February 1). RT @thehowie: NYC update Cases down 40%; positive rate 4.0% Hospital census back to levels of December 27 and declining. New hospitali… [Tweet]. @SciBeh. https://twitter.com/SciBeh/status/1488786082254700553

Il est allé dans la brousse ramasser des fruits de Diospyros avec ses camarades.

dafa -- he/she.

ànd v. / ànd bi -- to be together, to go together; copulate; going together, fellowship; placenta.

ak -- and, with, etc.

moroom mi -- comrade of the same age group, equal, companion, neighbor.

yi -- the (plural).

àll bi -- large expanse of uninhabited land, bush; distant, as opposed to home.

ba -- the (indicates distance).

for+i (for) v. -- to pick up.

aloom bi -- edible fruit of Diospyros mespiliformis (aloom gi for the tree).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL4iHgp5ejk

Veille à ce qu'il ne manque pas d'alcool à la maison.

fexe+el (fexe) v. -- search/seek by all means.

ba -- the (?).

kër gi -- house; family.

gi -- the (indicates nearness).

bañ v. -- refuse, resist, refuse to; to hate; verb marking the negation in subordinate clauses.

ñàkk v. / ñàkk bi -- vaccinate / vaccine (not sure exactly how this fits in the sentence if it's even the right translation -- perhaps it has to do with surgical alcohol rather than drinking alcohol).

alkol ji -- (French) surgical alcohol. (I'm certain this is also used for the type of alcohol you drink -- but sangara is probably the most used term).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsUjvAItysA

Le gardien de la paix a pris un voleur.

alkaati bi -- policeman.

ba -- the (indicates remoteness).

jàpp v. -- grab, take, stop.

na -- (?).

sàcc bi -- thief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9gOjBhk1q0

[Basic-1] Extra procedure？ (Enabling/Disabling Maintenance mode)

Background: From v2.0, switching between enabling and disabling maintenance mode in the Restore process has been automated. Therefore, the "Enabling maintenance mode" and "Disabling maintenance mode" steps are no longer required. Issue : The procedure that is not used is described. Request : Remove description

It's only been three-quarters of a century since the Bush paper. So many of the things he postulated have already come true, and many more probably will before a century is up. And yet, we still have global disasters like climate change.

Doug always emphasized the importance of coevolution. Re-reading this paper is a celebration of his technological foresight and the concepts underlying that, but it's also a sobering reminder of how much we've failed on the human side of coevolution. There's still time — not much, it feels like — but we need to start emphasizing this side of things more.

Nice acknowledgement of human irrationality here, well before the rise of behavioral economics.

The essence of Doug's bootstrapping approach.

This, in contrast to my previous comment, is a great example of Doug acknowledging the non-linearity of complex problem-solving. He's also foreshadowing Agile and Lean processes and highlighting the importance of continuous, fast learning.

The other thing that makes me cringe a bit when re-reading this paper is how hierarchically he frames everything, which of course is indicative of how he thought. He does make several references to how interwoven and connected and emergent everything actually is, but it's not the predominant frame.

How have they? This is a hard passage to read 60 years later, because it is so very easy to look things up, but that hasn't made us collectively smarter, and it hasn't changed the educational system at all. That's not to say that it hasn't impacted individuals or that there aren't amazing educational impacts to highlight, but systems are complicated, and as Howard Rheingold has noted in other annotations, culture is a powerful beast, sometimes in good ways, other times not.

One of Doug's classic metaphors, one that he still used often when I worked with him in 2000. He had a brick pencil on his desk in his office.

However, this metaphor feels like it has taken on new significance in today's world of social media, where speed has clearly discouraged thinking rather than emphasized it. So much of Howard Rheingold's work around crap-detection literacy and Mike Caulfield's work around fact checking simply starts by slowing down. It feels like we would be better served with the equivalent of brick pencils on the Internet!

The first time I read this paper, I remember being surprised by this reference to Whorf. Language was such a thing for Doug at so many levels.

This excerpt is so indicative of how Doug thought and his systemic / root-cause approach. Keep going deeper, keep looking for the sub-process underlying all other sub-processes, until you find the most impactful leverage point. This is, in essence, what his bootstrapping strategy was, and it's the heart of good systems thinking as well.

This reminds me so much of my favorite Doug story, which I wrote about here after he passed away. Doug loved bicycles, and so many of his great metaphors involved them, including this one:

As a kid, he and his brother used to challenge neighborhood kids to see who could perform the most difficult tricks. Doug had a trick that always worked. He would challenge the other kids to ride their bikes with their arms crossed.

What was so hard about this? Riding straight with your arms crossed was easy. The only tough part was turning. If you wanted to turn right, you’d have to move your left arm. If you wanted to turn left, you’d have to move your right arm. In other words, you simply had to do the opposite of what you normally had to do.

Two rules easily grasped, yet none of the kids could ever do it without falling off their bikes. Why? Because learning, in order to be applied, needs to be embodied. We need to build that habit and, sometimes, that means changing old habits.

This is hard, but it’s not impossible. That was the other key lesson of this story. Doug could do the trick, not because he was smarter or more physically gifted than the other kids, but because he had trained his body to do it through lots and lots of practice.

I appreciated that he emphasized "goal-centered" here! Very design-y!

As noted here, there's not a strong race or gender lens in this paper, as you might expect from a white male scientist writing in the early 1960s. Some of the examples (like this one) might feel a little cringe-worthy.

In fairness to Doug, I think he was very conscious of how privilege impacted worldview. Rather than use this as a metaphor, he could very easily have shared the story he told me and others repeatedly about hiking in the thick, Oregon woods with his brother when he was younger. His brother suddenly told him to stop and to stay still. Doug stopped, and peered carefully at his surroundings, trying to understand what made his brother want to stop. Finally, a deer emerged from the complex patterns that were in front of him. Doug was only able to see the deer when it moved, and he always marveled at how his brother was immediately able to recognize the deer out of all that noise.

Interesting to note in retrospect what felt "quickest" back then.

This jumped out at me when I re-read this paper — a reminder of how far ahead Doug was thinking and how open he was to what he might learn along the way. I was reminded of that evolution throughout the whole paper. For example, while he talks extensively about H-LAM/T in this paper (see http://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/138/#2a14 for the first mention), I'm not sure he ever referred to it in the time that I worked with him (starting in 2000). I can guess as to why, but I wished I had asked him. :-(

I'm struck by how much Doug is empathizing with "you" here. I feel like it speaks to how self-aware Doug was of the other person's experience as he spoke to them and the delicate balancing act he was doing as he tried to explain concepts. I'm not sure I felt that self-awareness (at least at this level) when we worked together.

Doug really understood how huge of a barrier a lack of shared language was. It was a huge challenge for him personally. I think him highlighting this example speaks to how important he thought it was to have shared language, although I don't know if experience has shown that this feature addresses the problem to the extent he speculates that it does here.

This helps reinforce what he writes in his introduction about going after the "quickest gains first." It seems like a little thing, but all of these little things together add up to something much bigger. These details matter when it comes to the overall experience.

One reason I like this storytelling technique is that it helps pull out important qualities that may not be evident from a mere description of the system. In this case, it's how fast the system works, and the implications of that speed. One of my big takeaways from working with Doug was the importance of reducing latency. I remember Jeff Rulifson talking about how Doug would constantly harp on how the system was not fast enough, how technically challenging it was to meet his demands, and yet how critically important it was in the end to the overall experience.

I love that Doug named this intention. He had to practice this his whole career, and I think it was challenging, although he does it nicely in this paper.

Couldn't help but chuckle at this. "So often been told"?! I don't think anyone has ever told me this, including Doug. I think it's okay that this hasn't manifested. :-)

I love this little description of Doug prototyping Bush's ideas and sharing what he learned from actual experimentation.

More on the power of externalizing.

More emphasis on externalizing what we're already doing when we're sensemaking. If the different connections and re-structuring we're making and doing in our heads is externalized, now we can easily build on them. Furthermore, others (including computers) can also look at them and do the same. If it's all versioned, we can easily re-trace our steps.

I am struck by how the Neo-Whorfian hypothesis described by Doug above starts to play out here. Bush is describing the memex in terms of concrete things he knows and understands — furniture, photos, newspapers, index cards, etc. It is tangible and inspiring, but as Doug starts to translate this into the language of digital computers below, it takes on new meaning.

On the one hand, all of Bush's technology examples are so out-dated. On the other hand, Bush isn’t totally constrained by them. There's enough there for Doug to start taking them somewhere new.

I'm also struck by how the descriptions in the "old language" remind me of how much has been lost in today's technology. We're going too fast, not taking the time to slow down, to zoom in and out, to make meaning of things together.

I don't remember Bush's metaphor of the "trail" jumping out so vividly the first time I read the paper. It's wonderful to see it today, as I think about how stigmergy (i.e. collaboration via leaving and following trails, e.g. ants) has become such a central concept in my work.

This is hard to read today, 74 years after Bush published this. We not only haven't addressed this today, we seem to have made it worse. Obviously, technology enables us to generate information even faster, as cogdog notes above. But the right technology could also encourage us to slow down, review, synthesize, and build on these ideas. As human beings, we already do this. Doug (and to some extent, Bush) was positing a system where we can externalize the meaning we make, which would allow us to do much more with it. I think a lot of folks have missed this.

It's amazing to be reminded of how strongly Doug was influenced by Vannevar Bush's paper, so much so that he devoted this much time to it. It speaks to the critical importance of vision.

I think Doug severely undervalued his own role as a visionary. He was a doer, as is so clear from this paper, where he moves so easily from big picture to the micro-weeds. But his vision was the guiding force that encouraged people to revisit and explore these weedy ideas over and over again.

Here Ms. Vaughn visits Billy at his house and tells him to go back to school and claim his company. Billy doesn't want o but Ms. Vaughn convinces him to go back. Here Billy has a since of stability and the meaning of error because Ms. Vaughn will be there to help him. Even though some people do not believe in him anymore she does. But was is right or professional of Ms. Vaughn to show up at Billy's house unannounced? Is is right to have a relationship with him?