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by agency 266 days ago
> I’m now tackling tasks I wouldn’t have even considered two or three years ago

Ok, so subjective

2 comments

any objective measure of "productivity" (when it comes to knowledge work) is, when you dig down into it enough, ultimately subjective.
"Not done" vs "Done" is as objective as it gets.
You obviously have never worked a company that spends time arguing about the "definition of done". It's one of the most subjective topics I know about.
Sounds like a company is not adequately defining what the deliverables are.

Task: Walk to the shops & buy some milk.

Deliverables: 1. Video of walking to the shops (including capturing the newspaper for that day at the local shop) 2. Reciept from local store for milk. 3. Physical bottle of Milk.

Cool, I went to the store and bought a 50ml bottle of probiotic coconut milk. Task done?
Yes.

milk (noun):

1. A whitish liquid containing proteins, fats, lactose, and various vitamins and minerals that is produced by the mammary glands of all mature female mammals after they have given birth and serves as nourishment for their young.

2. The milk of cows, goats, or other animals, used as food by humans.

3. Any of various potable liquids resembling milk, such as coconut milk or soymilk.

In germany soymilk and the like can't be sold as milk. But coconut milk is okay. (I don't know if that's a german thing or a EU-thing.)
Only if you can tick off ALL of the deliverables that verify "done".
Sure, I took a video etc like in the deliverables. That means it’s successfully done?
Yes.

Why would you write down "Buy Milk", then go buy whatever thing you call milk, then come back home and be confused about it?

Only an imbecile would get stuck in such a thing.

Well, I think in this example someone else wrote down “buy milk”. Of course I would generally know what that’s likely to mean, and not buy the ridiculous thing. But someone from a culture that’s not used to using milk could easily get confused and buy the wrong thing, to further the example. I guess my point was that it’s never possible to completely unambiguously define when a task is done without assuming some amount of shared knowledge with the person completing the task that lets them figure out what you meant and fill in any gaps
It removes ambiguity. Everyone knows when work is truly considered done, avoiding rework, surprises, and finger-pointing down the line.
At work we call this scope creep.