Empty the Trash (a housekeeping tip from mom)
The "organize a zone" tips I see from FlyLady's newsletter and Susan C Pinsky's "organizing systems" book both include a major double-header tip:
- Empty your trash can before it's full
- Start your task with an empty trash can
Cleaning the house #
Before you start to clean a zone, get an empty trash can!
If you already have a can with a significant amount of trash, then empty that trash can into the dumpster. Then add the new bin liner.
If you have trash bagged up near the trash can, empty it into the dumpster.
Flush your buffers #
For workers, project managers, and delivery managers:
Regularly check on tasks that are "in review / ready to ship". If you're prepared to ship a task, then do it! (with a feature flag, probably). If a task is ready to ship but the shipper isn't ready, then schedule time for a shipper as soon as feasible.
For buffering systems in production: are there enough tasks in the outbound queue, that it's cheap enough to be worth sending them? are there so many tasks in the outbound queue that it's expensive or hazardous to keep them, and we should throw alerts or, start purging?
What even is trash? #
Trash is really "things we're done with". Same tactics (but different names) go for "tasks which are ready to ship". (TODO: a different punchy name for "work done" rather than "refuse (noun)".)
Management--including product managers, engineering managers, quality assurance, engineering tech leads, and everyone's internal sense of quality--is responsible for defining and communicating a rubric to determine "this thing is trash."
- next: Fly, my pretties!
- this post: Empty the Trash
- previous: Find the fun (when it looks boring)