In the self-application of the Socratic Method, you question your own assumptions, stripping away confounding information to reveal the truth embedded in your position. Critical self-inquiry—playing your own devil’s advocate—requires both patience and honesty, but is essential in the quest for improvement. As Socrates shows us, so many of the assum

Don’t ‘over-control’ like a novice pilot. Stay loose enough from the flow that you can observe it, modify, and improve it. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. ~ Johnny Nash

Life is not like that. It is variable. It changes whether we plan for it or not. Our systems need to be flexible to adapt to this variation.

We crave and deserve context. Without context, being told what to do is a communication failure.

Work we have yet to complete, or any aspect of our life that distracts us, creates existential overhead. As existential overhead mounts, our effectiveness diminishes. Visualizing work reduces the distractions of existential overhead by transforming fuzzy concepts into tangible objects that your brain can easily grasp and prioritize.

Detroit’s focus on production (productivity) over value (effectiveness) dehumanized the workplace. Production became more important than people and innovation suffered.

A project’s context, tasks, and subtasks are subject to change. Plan, estimate, and break down tasks at the last responsible moment. We want to time our planning for when it can be the most effective—when we have sufficient information, or when we have no other choice than to begin work.

we go to work, we have little visibility into our co-workers’ actions while at the same time, we offer them little transparency into our own. We are told to do work, but seldom understand why. We crave and deserve context. Without context, being told what to do is a communication failure. We cannot make informed decisions or create a quality produc