In the past I often got annoyed and impatient with an organization or leadership that just didn’t seem to “get it”.
I was convinced that there was so much potential to be so much better. I would propose a solution that I thought was “good”, but in the end the organization would eventually fall back to a level that is “good enough”. And the level of “good enough” doesn’t always fit my definition of “good”.
My viewpoint of “good” is a personal assessment, whereas “good enough” is determined by the organization or system. “Good enough” is whatever enables the system to function sufficiently well.
Personal assessments of “good” or “bad” are often based on experience and knowledge of a domain. If you ask a Chef with multiple Michelin Stars their opinion about a meal or you ask someone that eats mostly fast food or frozen food then you are likely to get very different opinions on what is “good”.
This same concept applies to more technical fields. If I ask two people to comment on an organization’s testing process:
- An experienced developer that has been doing TDD for years and works in an environment that deploys multiple times per day.
- A developer that has only worked in an environment doing releases 1 to 2 times a year and separates the development team from the testing team.
Each of them will have very different opinions on what is “good”.
But what is “good enough”? Well the organizations in both scenarios have very different definitions of “good enough”.
What helped me to have a better perspective of “good” vs “good enough” was the adjective ladder.
The Adjective Ladder
If we only look at things as good or bad then it is like a binary decision, 1 or 0. But with most things it isn’t only binary, rather it is a scale, with two extremes, any many possible values on this scale.
The adjective ladder shared by Kevin J M-Bartlett on Quora is an interesting tool that has helped me to align my personal expectations and also give more realistic proposals.
The ladder effectively gives a model to go up and down and be more explicit about the different values on the scale of good and bad.
It gave me a mental model to better discern 1) where my personal perception of “good” is 2) where others’ perceptions of “good” are in relationship to me and 3) where the organization actually currently is, what it’s baseline is.
Going up and down the ladder
In many cases it is just not possible for an organization to jump multiple levels in a very short period of time. Gradual improvement is often necessary.
Having in mind my view of “good” (1) and where I believe the organization currently is (3), then I can better provide 4) realistic proposals for the organization. These proposals (4) are “up the ladder” from where the organization is now (3) but not yet what I would call “good” (1).
Regardless, going up the ladder means getting better, so it is going in the right direction.
As an example, if I believe an organization has a testing process that is “poor”, then trying to push a proposal that I believe to be “good” is actually 10 steps up the adjective ladder! That is a huge jump! Rather than pushing for “good” maybe I should push first for “weak”, which is 3 steps up the ladder. Then, at a later time, when the organization is ready, maybe we can shoot for something that is “fair”, another 4 steps up the ladder.
What do you think? Does the concept of an adjective ladder help you?
