Write it the F*** Down
No matter if in code through clear names or explanatory comments, or as a pull request description giving context to reviewers, as description or comment on a Trello card, or as a document on Basecamp or whatever other tools you’re using in your projects. Write it the f*** down.
An old latin proverb summarizes this post very succinctly: Verba volant, scripta manent. Spoken words fly away, written words remain.
In too many meetings things are talked and discussed over and over again, just to have the same or a similar discussion a week or a month later. Not only does it waste a lot of time talking about things multiple times, most people who need the context of the discussion are not part of the call or meeting (be that developers in a project management meeting, or vice versa).
- note it down for everybody to review what has been decided
- prevent having the same discussion again at a later point in time
- let people who were not part of the discussion know what decisions have been made
Make the notes available to everyone on the project — stakeholders, project managers, developers, designers, interns, and everyone else. There’s usually no need to keep information private, we’re all working at the same project/product and our goal is to make it awesome. Let people take a look at the notes and encourage them to leave a comment if they do not understand or think something important was not been considered.
In agile projects utilizing groomings, estimations, plannings, daily standups, reviews and retrospectives, each of these steps has something to do with writing stuff down:
- Grooming: Write down everything that is important for the story. Give enough context so everybody can understand the purpose and the expected outcome of it.
- Estimation: A team not being able to estimate a story or having long discussions and many questions about the expected outcome are signs that not all relevant information is available in written form (or it is not written clear enough).
- Planning: If the team finds itself coming up with questions during the planning that need the PO to answer, it’s another sign that not all relevant information is available to everyone who needs them.
- Daily Standup: Writing down here includes checking off the tasks that have been completed and those that will be worked on next, but also adding a note if an obstacle is found and someone else needs to help out.
- Review: Thankfully I’ve never seen a story being rejected during the review due to fulfilling outcomes that were meant in another way. But I’ve heard from such stories.
- Retrospective: Here’s the place where the team should raise their concerns about information not being available to them or the decision making process being too opaque for someone not being part of all the discussions.
If you go through the list you’ll notice that the earlier you make all information available to everyone the cheaper the whole process will be. Just imagine the situation where you’ve spent two weeks working on a story just to then find out in the review that it doesn’t solve the problem. That’s quite a bit of money you just burnt.
And since you’re already talking through questions in meetings, it doesn’t cost a lot of extra time to just write down what’s being spoken about.
But writing stuff down does not start and end with working hours. I’ve found myself writing down like almost everything that I cannot complete or act upon immediately. This includes chores around my home, things I need to buy, books I want to read, and random thoughts I want to remember. This practice keeps me free from remembering all the little things that usually do not make a difference on my life and leaves a lot of mental energy free for more important things. One of the most obvious habits I’ve seen other people incorporating is managing a calendar with all appointments and events, ready to take a look at but not having to remember anything about it. I’m using Google Calendar for this and also use its reminder feature to remind me about things that I can’t yet reserve time for in my schedule. But I hope that reminders will get fewer and fewer, as I think having a structured day helps being focused and getting the priorities right throughout the day/week/month and also helps in planning the upcoming week / day more efficiently.
