The discipline, written down Book a study →

VI.
MMXXVI

Sheet six

The working set

Thirty rules. Not one of them was reasoned out in advance. Every one is here because something went wrong, somebody wrote down what it was, and the rule stopped it happening a second time. The set is published in full because a rule kept private only protects the person keeping it.

Why publish

There is an obvious question about why a working set like this gets published rather than kept. The answer is that these are not the work. They are the constraints the work runs inside.

A rule saying instrument before you launch does not tell anybody how to build a demand programme, what to specify, where the tolerances sit, or which of six lifecycle stages is failing in a particular company. A rule like that tells a reader the order, and the order is worth more to a reader than to a competitor, which is the test we applied to every line below.

Measurement

Eight rules about reading

RefRuleWhy it exists

Instrument before you launch

Measurement fitted after the campaign records a tracking install for its first weeks, and those weeks then become the baseline every later result is judged against.

Resolve the destination live

Before touching any connector, read from the live system which account the data will arrive in. A settings screen, a screenshot and a recollection have all been wrong, and a lead delivered into the wrong account is not recoverable.

A passing report is not evidence

An automated verification that reports nothing was cut will quietly edit its own audit to match what it actually did. Count the links yourself.

Verify a negative by a second, independent method

The field is empty, the page does not exist, there is no sitemap. Every one of those is a claim. A script whose fetch failed silently produces exactly the same output as a genuine absence.

Measure the control before naming a cause

A number from one condition names no cause. A fault that reproduces on something you never touched is a fault in the test.

Re-baseline in the open

When the measurement surface changes underneath you, say so and start the line again. Splicing a rebuilt measurement onto an old trend and calling it continuity is a routinely dishonest chart in marketing.

Declare what the run could not do

Every deliverable opens with its own limits. That declaration is the only thing letting a reader tell which runs to trust, and it is honest work rather than an apology.

A server answering is not a page existing

A success code means the server replied. Compare the address that resolved against the one requested, and probe a nonsense address first to catch a catch-all.

The system

Seven rules about order

RefRuleWhy it exists

Specify the output before building the input

The figure, the date, and the reading that would prove the plan wrong, all written before anything is built.

Write the tolerance before the reading exists

A pass band agreed after the figure arrives gets reinterpreted to accommodate the figure that arrived.

One variable per pass, and keep the log

Four simultaneous changes produce a result that belongs to nobody. The log is part of the deliverable rather than a private note.

Build the thinnest complete path first

One closed loop from first contact to recorded outcome, however small, before any widening.

Infrastructure sets the ceiling on output

Processes, workflows and the machine layer underneath determine how much work of what standard reaches customers. Adding people below that ceiling does not raise it.

Adoption decides whether a system works

A workflow people route around delivers nothing, whatever its design. A system nobody uses failed at design time, not at rollout.

The connecting layer is rarely staffed

The work between an approved strategy and published output usually has no owner. Teams hire strategists and specialists, the layer between them stays vacant, output falls short of plan, and the plan takes the blame.

The machine

Nine rules about automation

RefRuleWhy it exists

Never backfill first

Turn the ongoing process on at a volume a person can actually read, correct it, and only then go back and fill in history. A hundred records processed in one run cannot be audited by anybody.

Separate writing from checking

Different stage, different context. A model checking a draft it just wrote is checking a view it has already formed, and it will clear its own faults.

Mechanical checks beat inferential review

If a script can detect a fault without judgement, a script should. A rule that lives only in a document is passive and gets forgotten under load.

Load the rules as an editing layer

Front-loading a style guide into the writing prompt contaminates the output. The remnants are invisible in one piece and obvious across ten.

The machine narrows, the person decides

Prepare evidence at scale, then route the call to a named human with the evidence attached. A model produces candidates, never findings.

A cheap model cannot check copy

Deciding whether a subject can perform an action is not cheap classification work. A small model will clear five planted faults and then flag every sentence of a real draft.

A silent restart against stale state produces wrong work

Any process that resumes itself without a person confirming the state will eventually produce confident output built on something that changed while it was asleep, and no alarm will fire.

An unverifiable verdict is not a verdict

Where a step needs judgement the machine cannot supply, route it to a person rather than letting a confident output stand in for one.

Learn from what went right, not only from corrections

A system that only records mistakes improves when things break and never when they work. After good work, ask what the procedure actually was and write it down.

Cost

Three rules about spending

RefRuleWhy it exists

State the cost with its arithmetic before the call

Wherever price scales with a page limit, a result count or a crawl depth, the expected cost is calculated out loud and approved for that call alone. An earlier approval does not cover a later, larger one.

Start at the smallest exploratory parameter

Never the maximum first. A document that bills per page rather than per address has turned a modest budget negative inside a single command.

Ask which method produced any published cost figure

Cost figures quoted for machine work vary by a factor of seven depending on whether cached input is priced correctly. A headline number with no method behind it is neither true nor false.

Judgement

Three rules about review

RefRuleWhy it exists

Restate before you critique

Produce an accurate account of what the source actually said, what it had access to, and what it already conceded. A critique formed before re-reading is suspect, and the urge to sound sharp spikes exactly when somebody asks what you think.

A question is not an instruction

A system that turns every question into a task produces work nobody asked for. Answer the question, then stop, and wait for the instruction.

Raise the objection you actually have

Pushing back to appear rigorous costs the same as agreeing to be agreeable. If you looked for the counter-case and found none, say that instead.

Plate VI · Order with dimension scale · Public domain

The reading comes before the plan

Request a study