Cognition
Why Are Harvard Students Lining Up for the “Brutal” Class?
Hum 10 is an intense humanities class at Harvard that involves reading nearly a book a week while writing essays. Recently the class has had twice the number of people want to sign up as there are slots. Cal shared some of the students’ comments primarily around how they wanted to fight “the machine” and regain their attention and ability to think deeply. Reward shortcutting is finding the quickest path to reward without doing the actual work (e.g., investing in social relationships). For many, generative AI allows us to the feeling that we’ve acquired or produced new knowledge. It’s hard to read a book; that hardness is the feeling of changing your understanding of the world and yourself. It’s the strain of the muscles when someone’s training at the gym. The book is the best summary because the author and editors have distilled things down into an impactful work. You don’t really understand something unless you’ve grappled with trying to explain it. Real rewards cost effort, and that’s what makes meaningful impacts on our lives.
Process
Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation
- Value stream map != process map. The former is strategic, the latter is tactical.
- Sequence: charter, current state map, future state map, transformation plan
- Not surprising, but this lean technique is supported by understanding other parts of Lean thinking (types of waste, flow, batching, lead & process time, improving quality at the source).
- Another part of Lean (TPS specifically) that people miss is the cultural aspects. The authors stress the key cultural requirements (e.g., shift to holistic systems thinking) and the importance of effective leadership from line-level managers to the executive sponsor. Also, the intermediate steps need to be socialized (not just a one-time email) to anyone affected. People are involved, not just informed.
- This is a practitioner’s guide of how to run this activity from start to finish.
- There are plenty of examples of what “poor” looks like so you know how to spot it and what a possible future could look like.
- The authors shared (and emphasized repeatedly) what makes transformations successful and also listed multiple failure modes to watch out for.
- I loved the section with 17 things you can do with your freed capacity other than cutting staff.
- There are examples of how to handle orgs of varying maturity so you don’t do too much too soon.
- Facilitators need a combination of focus, discipline, and the ability to connect with and inspire people involved in mapping
- There are six appendices with example maps from different industries.
- Although not geared towards engineers, this book is very applicable to people who work on and within systems. I’d easily recommend this book.