Thread by @TfTHacker

I am a big fan of @ejames_c writings at @commoncog. A subscription to his service leads to many amazing essays. #TfT

I want to highlight this article and why the concept is valuable to use in Tools for Thought. (Article is free to the public)

commoncog.com/no-learning-do…

In this essay, he talks about the amazing work of Edwards Deming, specifically the PDSA model.

PLAN
DO
STUDY
ACT

It's a model for continuous improvement by iterating through multiple workflows to achieve desired results through trial & error (honest examination of results).

The idea of PDSA is that it involves multiple loops of PDSA.

Rarely in life do we reach our intended goals with just one attempt, rather we succeed over multiple iterations, with each iteration getting closer to the desired result.

In this article, Cedric calls our attention to one sad reality. While it is easy to plan and get started (Plan, Do), we often fail to do the Study (analyze their results) and Act (adjust our approach).

He encourages us to "finish the loop" even if it seems like it won't succeed.

Finishing the loop allows us to fully gather the information we need so that we can adjust our workflow and then try another loop.

In other words, what lessons were learned in the current loop to feed into the next loop.

Why is this relevant for TfT? We rarely find the perfect worklfow or approach to some problem we want to solve on our first attempt.

Rather we need to define the goal and then start multiple loops of testing our theories until it finally succeeds.

Let me give you an example.

EXAMPLE: I have to read a lot of material for work. The problem is time.

How do I not only get through all the reading material but extract useful "things" from that material? I mean, what is the point of reading if you don't benefit from it?

I started a series of PDSA loops to experiment with improving "value-based" reading.

For example, how do I select what is relevant and important?

How much time do I spend reading each topic?

How much time a day can I read?

These are not easy answers to these questions.

So I started with a list of priority topics and non-priority topics.

Week one, I had 4 priority topics, and I read 5 minutes on each topic each day (20 minutes reading)

Week two: 4 priority topics, reading 10 minutes per topic (40 minutes reading)

and so on....

I did these loops over multiple months, increasing and decreasing time, the number of things to read, and so on.

Each loop was a week so that I could iterate the process fast.

As I went through each loop, I documented the plan and, during the study phase, "the results".

Then I adapted to what I learned for the next cycle.

It is a painful process, but slowly I started to see how much I needed to read daily to get measurable value from my reading (also to enjoy it and not hate it)

I gathered many interesting insights on myself.

So, the lesson is, PDSA is a useful tool for getting your TfT system optimized, but its a serious investment. My advice:

1) Determine the big problems you need to solve
2) Try PDSA loops on the problem
3) Stick with it until you have resolved the problem.