Glossary

3Ws #

Prevent your customers from wondering, waiting or worrying, which comes from *Burn Your Portfolio* by Michael Janda.

5on2 #

Talk for 5 minutes about any work you have today that will take 2 hours or more. This helps prevent roadblocks and wasted time doing the wrong work.

Activity Stacking #

Pairing activities together to have a win-win-win, a triple benefit, like HSAs 😄. For example, spending time with kids playing a game that teaches money. (kids, fun, fiscal education)

Bus Co-efficiency #

The number of people on your team that could get hit by a bus and the project (or company) would survive. Disseminating knowledge across your team will increase your bus co-efficiency.

Essential Releases #

Releasing early with simply-enough so you can get feedback sooner. See also: Feature-Boxing

Feature-Boxing #

Reduce down to the requirements, only spending a portion of your budget (50% for must-haves) to ensure there are leftover resources for the corrections and nice-to-have features.

Fishbowl Experience #

No work or workflow is hidden. Make it so anyone can see what you're doing, to course correct and learn from. See also: Work Out Loud

Foggy-Brain Tax #

The cost of forgetting why you did something or how it works. Either write down the essential details or incentivize dealing with it now. Writing details down can help you remember them, and others can learn from them.

Hack-In #

An in-person or remote hackathon for a single project with a small team of 3-5. The biggest benefits are reducing the feedback loop and real-time collaboration.

Invariant #

Something that doesn't change and isn't documented in your process or software. See also: Invariant Map

Invariant Map #

The professional's undocumented mental landscape of the known business truths, universal truths, and the watch-your-step assumptions that may affect other areas. TigerBeetle calls invariants the negative space. (Solutions: assertions, automated tests, documentation) See also: Invariant

Low Fidelity Work #

Any non-high-fidelity work, such as a sketch, wireframe, prototype, or pixel-free, database-less experience. This is a healthy constraint on the kind of feedback and amount of work required. Do this to quickly get feedback and iterate. See also: Thin Slices

Reps #

Like reps in your exercises, the more you do something, the more comfortable you'll be. You're Grandfather's drill press or Grandmother's blender is overwhelming at first but less overwhelming after you've used one a hundred times. Feel uncomfortable? Most likely, you haven't been here or done this thing before. Go get some reps in.

Sandbox #

Take your current problem and put it in a sandbox (whiteboard, spreadsheet, [codesandbox.io](https://codesandbox.io/), [codepen](https://codepen.io/pen), etc). This is a safe place to play and experiment. You can try new things in isolation and not worry about breaking anything.

Surface Over Mass #

Prioritizing what impacts the customer and high-level metrics. Peter Drucker said to run lean. Organizations often focus on internal complexities over external impact. Think about a biological organism. The inner mass grows faster than the outer surface which will divert energy to manage the internal mass.

Thin Slices #

Quick release. Working on and sharing the smallest possible piece of work that can be done. This helps prevent roadblocks and wasted time doing the wrong work. See also: 5on2

Work About Work #

The work that isn't the work. The planning to plan, the meeting to meet, the task to create a task. This is the work that doesn't move the project forward.

Work Out Loud #

Sharing your work often for accountability and feedback. Don't work on an island. Disseminate knowledge. Give a pulse of what you are doing and what is going on. The goal is to prevent clients and the team from the 3Ws. See also: 3Ws