One Page Fits All

Monday, June 27, 2011

A recent issue of my eLetter prompted this response:

I would like to ‘build’ on your objectives fit on one piece of paper. The same goes for lessons learned after a project. Produce a wonderfully formatted 50 page document and nobody will read it and nobody will learn. Produce a one page ‘lessons learned’ document and it will be read and people will learn.

Thanks Bob, and yes the "1-sheet" principle has been around for a long time.

The Ten Commandments, ...

We used 80-column coding form pads when I started.

We penciled in our FORTRAN, COBOL, ASSEMBLER et al. line after line, page after page, pad after pad.

Twenty years later I learned that had I broken the programs down into 1-page subroutines, the programs would have worked a lot sooner with much less "debugging".

I hold to that today - any procedure that won't fit on a screen is most likely to be buggy.

I believe it is all to do with the eyes & brain - when I can encompass the whole thing without needing any physical movement (e.g. scrolling with a mouse of PgUp key) my brain can take in the entire idea and work on it.

From THAT flows one of my Golden Rules if Windows, always to maximize every window!

What About You?

A central thesis is that if you can’t fit your idea onto a single sheet of paper, then you need to break it down into several subsidiary child sheets under a single parent sheet.

Take a look at your business plan, your proposal, your web site.

Talk to Me !

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