Comments on: Balancing Uniqueness and Uniformity in Knowledge Work

By: McGee’s Musings : How better thinking about deliverables leads to better knowledge work results

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:06:20 +0000

[...] Path #2: Balance uniqueness and uniformity [...]

By: Stephen Bounds

Stephen Bounds — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:32:03 +0000

Hi Jim,

Nice article. I was particularly taken by your comparison of artists and their patrons to knowledge workers and their clients — I’ve reflected on this similarity a little more on my blog: http://bounds.net.au/node/52

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:51:58 +0000

Deliverables still have a potential role in knowledge work I suspect. It can serve as a sort of milestone/progress marker in an effort that would otherwise be too amorphous. It’s another one of those subtle shifts in meaning in a work world that generally doesn’t think too highly of subtlety.

I agree that you are on to something in looking at software developers as a model for knowledge workers. I’ve been thinking along the same lines and your post looks like it will help move my thinking along. Thanks for pointing it out

By: Simon Bostock

Simon Bostock — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 08:56:35 +0000

Yep – the deliverable’s raison d’etre is the ability to get paid. I think you’re right to label this as a relic of industrialism and an obsession with replication.

I was interested to see Dave Gray’s Xplane team emphasise ‘modularity’ as one of their core values, recently:
http://hypergogue.posterous.com/xplane-culture-map-things-we-didnt-want-to-lo

There’s a subtle ‘crafty’ difference between ‘reuse’ and ‘replication’ that I like but can’t put my finger on.

I’ve kind of tried here:
http://infinitelyorthogonal.blogspot.com/2009/08/software-and-rediscovery-of-joy-of.html