Tags: organisation

16

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Wednesday, April 19th, 2023

Efficiency trades off against resiliency - Made of Bugs

Past some point, making a system more efficient will mean making it less resilient, and, conversely, building in robustness tends to make a system less efficient (at least in the short run).

This is true of software, networks, and organisations.

When we set metrics or goals for a system or a team or an organization that ask for efficiency, let us be aware that, absent countervailing pressures, we are probably also asking for the system to become more brittle and fragile, too.

Monday, September 26th, 2022

Your design system contribution practice is doomed to fail by Amy Hupe, content designer.

This is a great analysis by Amy of the conflicting priorities tugging at design systems.

No matter how hard we work to foster these socialist ideals, like community, collaboration, and contribution, it feels as though we’re always being dragged to a default culture of individualism.

Thursday, April 22nd, 2021

Full Stack Service Design – Sarah Drummond

Katie shared this (very good) piece about service design on Slack at work today, and when I got to the bit about different levels, my brain immediately went “pace layers!”

  1. The Service
  2. The Infrastructure
  3. The Organisation
  4. The Intent
  5. The Culture

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

How to build a bad design system | CSS-Tricks

Working in a big organization is shocking to newcomers because of this, as suddenly everyone has to be consulted to make the smallest decision. And the more people you have to consult to get something done, the more bureaucracy exists within that company. In short: design systems cannot be effective in bureaucratic organizations. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Who hurt you, Robin?

Wednesday, January 8th, 2020

Guide to Internal Communication, the Basecamp Way

Writing solidifies, chat dissolves. Substantial decisions start and end with an exchange of complete thoughts, not one-line-at-a-time jousts. If it’s important, critical, or fundamental, write it up, don’t chat it down.

This one feels like it should be Somebody’s Law:

If your words can be perceived in different ways, they’ll be understood in the way which does the most harm.

Wednesday, September 11th, 2019

The Ugly Truth about Design Systems

The video of a talk in which Mark discusses pace layers, dogs, and design systems. He concludes:

  1. Current design systems thinking limits free, playful expression.
  2. Design systems uncover organisational disfunction.
  3. Continual design improvement and delivery is a lie.
  4. Component-focussed design is siloed thinking.

It’s true many design systems are the blueprints for manufacturing and large scale application. But in almost every instance I can think of, once you move from design to manufacturing the horse has bolted. It’s very difficult to move back into design because the results of the system are in the wild. The more strict the system, the less able you are to change it. That’s why broad principles, just enough governance, and directional examples are far superior to locked-down cookie cutters.

Monday, October 8th, 2018

Workplace topology | Clearleft

The hits keep on comin’ from Clearleft. This time, it’s Danielle with an absolutely brilliant and thoughtful piece on the perils of gaps and overlaps in pattern libraries, design systems and organisations.

This is such a revealing lens to view these things through! Once you’re introduced to it, it’s hard to “un-see” problems in terms of gaps and overlaps in categorisation. And even once the problems are visible, you still need to solve them in the right way:

Recognising the gaps and overlaps is only half the battle. If we apply tools to a people problem, we will only end up moving the problem somewhere else.

Some issues can be solved with better tools or better processes. In most of our workplaces, we tend to reach for tools and processes by default, because they feel easier to implement. But as often as not, it’s not a technology problem. It’s a people problem. And the solution actually involves communication skills, or effective dialogue.

That last part dovetails nicely with Jerlyn’s equally great piece.

Friday, August 10th, 2018

Creating the “Perfect” CSS System – Gusto Design – Medium

This is great advice from Lindsay Grizzard—getting agreement is so much more important than personal preference when it comes to collaborating on a design system.

When starting a project, get developers onboard with your CSS, JS and even HTML conventions from the start. Meet early and often to discuss every library, framework, mental model, and gem you are interested in using and take feedback seriously. Simply put, if they absolutely hate BEM and refuse to write it, don’t use BEM.

It’s all about the people, people!

Thursday, September 14th, 2017

Full-Stack Developers | Brad Frost

In my experience, “full-stack developers” always translates to “programmers who can do frontend code because they have to and it’s ‘easy’.” It’s never the other way around. The term “full-stack developer” implies that a developer is equally adept at both frontend code and backend code, but I’ve never in my personal experience witnessed anyone who truly fits that description.

Monday, September 11th, 2017

Web Matters

An organisation has formed here in the UK as a response to the increasing threats to the web:

We are called to come together in response to growing political and social uncertainty, direct threats to the profession, and a lack of vocal and proactive representation to organise as a representative, independent, and politically responsible industry body.

The inaugural AGM is happening in Edinburgh tomorrow. Get along to that if you can. Otherwise, there’s always Slack.

I like their manifesto; let’s put it to the test-o.

Friday, October 21st, 2016

Maintaining and organising a pattern library - FutureLearn

Alla looks at a few different ways of organising the contents of a pattern library, based on her experience with the FutureLearn team.

Thursday, May 14th, 2015

100 words 053

When I got back from Bletchley Park yesterday, I immediately started huffduffing more stories about cryptography and code-breaking.

One of the stories I found was an episode of Ockham’s Razor featuring Professor Mark Dodgson. He talks about the organisational structure at Bletchley Park:

The important point was the organization emphasised team-working and open knowledge sharing where it was needed, and demarcation and specialisation where it was most appropriate.

This reminds of another extraordinary place, also displaying remarkable levels of collaboration, that has an unusual lack of traditional hierarchies and structure: CERN.

Bletchley Park produced the computer. CERN produced the web.

Thursday, March 21st, 2013

Science Hack Day is coming to your city! by Ariel Waldman

Want a Science Hack Day where you live? Make it so!

Friday, July 13th, 2012

We’ll tell you what you really want: Mobile context, top tasks, and organization-centric thinking | Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Content Strategist

An excellent follow-up to the recent posts on the myth of mobile context.

You often hear about cutting content to cut clutter. I support this—if you’re cutting the clutter from everywhere, not just a mobile experience.

Maybe the answer isn’t cutting. Maybe it’s learning better skills for designing and structuring complex information to be usable and enjoyable in small spaces.

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

Open Conference Expectations — Gist

This is a really good initiative—a list of minimum expectations from conference organisers (although there’s clearly some differences between cheaper grassroots events and larger industry affairs).

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Structuring a Responsive Stylesheet | Sparkbox

Some thoughts on structuring your CSS for responsive designs.