Tuesday, July 31, 2007
DECISIONEERING
A plan is not a decision. A database is a place to lay out choices, but it is not a decision-making tool. You are the decision making tool. The MasterList helps you make decisions by giving you the ability to organize lists and track task queues by project, category, type, priority, chronology. It allows you to view fields of activities with related knowledge connected in. This way you can see the fields and clear the fields according to a system of organized, rationale decision-making.
As stated, The MasterList is just an important tool. You are the decision-maker. One of the fatal flaws of industrial-grade mission management software is that the programmer's algorithms, keyboard sequences, and screen flow/report choices preempt the decision making process in favor of the built-in agendas. This degrades the ability to choose, indeed punishes it by providing no options to deal with insight, or to implement analysis of critical issues in a creative way.
The MasterList is a free-wheeling decisioneering tool that adapts to the way you organize, think, and choose.
Which brings me back to Microsoft and its failure to revitalize Outlook to become a decisioneering tool rather than a mere crippled PIM. If it did, it would circumvent the Innovator's Dilemma and could leap-frog ahead of Google. It's a shame because Microsoft is probably the only company besides Yahoo that has the bankroll and the server farm expertise to leapfrog ahead. But, unlike Outlook and its Office Suite, which was the killer application, which through Microsoft Exchange bound the world, and any organization of any size to its operating systems, Microsoft has no application which makes it indispensable in a world dominated by subscription based online applications tied to robust, secure, flexible My-Space shareable-like server farms.
The MasterList is and could have been that application. Outlook could easily be transformed to be that application. But, nothing happens. Our paradigm sits on the back shelf and Outlook's market is being chipped away. We don't need its email anymore. Are Word and Excel really so indispensable. And, its most important feature calendar and to-do list are no more sophisticated than they were in DOS 15 years ago.
So, The MasterList is and Outlook could be a tool for decisioneering. A good calendaring and to-list system needs to give you multiple ways to overview tasks, inventory them, store them, link stuff together fast when you need to organize it quickly and specially and separately on the fly. As the designer of the MasterList I have worked also within other companies and utilized industry-centric case and project management programs which are time-consuming, frustrating behemoths. Outlook has never attempted to compete with these non MS-products. The MasterList is genius compared to these products, but has had insufficient financial backing to market itself competitively. Again, Outlook could be that product. But, Microsoft seems to be unapproachable to this idea. The MasterList utilized with a personal decisioneering regimen beats David Allen and Franklin Day Planner hands down for keyboard facility of linking stuff in a way that makes you want to get back to it; and to know exactly how to do that in a balanced way.
In the real world of management, stuff comes up you can't do now and you need to make notes or lists about that. That's where The MasterList comes in. One of my favorite uses of The MasterList is debriefing an event. That means I am not going to engage in a decision to do all follow-up possibilities now. Only 3600 seconds in an hour and my potential choices are vast. So, my feeble brain cannot hold more than 3, 4, ideas, elements, bullets, of anything for more than a few minutes. That's where The MasterList comes in to store stuff on a project centric, task sequenced basis, or as an undifferentiated task, or in special "master" lists for dealing with fresh knee-buckling tasks screaming in from outlying spaces.
We are not to Prioritization yet. Let's suppose I decide I want to see what my task inventory is. This is "pare-down" prioritization made very easy by The MasterList. Let's say, in The MasterList, at a single key stroke from the home page, I pull up a list of all tasks for today for me and any in the past that are lagging. First thing I want to do is reduce the number of these tasks to a manageable subset for today. The MasterList has a built in triaging tool called Time-Blaster where with a right click I can blast a task 1 day, 3 days, 5, 7, 14, 28 and essentially pare it off my list and sequentially prioritize it quickly and even en bloc with basically 1 or 2 keystrokes.
How do you keep your tasks up to date? If it takes 7 keystrokes to clear a single task to the future, what do you do when you have 100 or 200 lagging tasks in your industry-specific management program, or in Outlook? Neither Outlook nor any industry specific PIM/management system has such a concept built into it that I know of.
With The MasterList hundreds of lagging tasks could easily be cleared and organized logically and sequentially to create a meaningful subset of today's plan within just 5 minutes.
The MasterList doesn't just organize by projects, it also has task codes which help because they can also be used as task organizing and priority signals. This is not unique to The MasterList, but we have unique reporting tools that take advantage of these "codes"; and, we know how to use them creatively. Oh yes, The MasterList has color prioritization too.
But, this note is about The MasterList as a decisioneering tool. Prioritization is important. But, when you are in an action landscape, either professionally or personally, one thing you want to do is cut down the number of possible decisions you have to make. The best number of possible decisions is one. That's hard to achieve. Most to-do list, PIM, and industry specific case/project management systems are designed to throw you dozens and hundreds of choices. The problem is that even an octopus can only put on one pant leg at a time. So, what would be least stressful for the user is a program that can help "pare down" the choices to one, or something close to one.
One of the best features of The MasterList is that it not only can handle 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or even 1,000,000 tasks, chores, links, ideas, concepts, plans, choices, notes for you or a team, it can then pare them down to 20, 2, 1 very fast. That's the real goal of a well designed professional case/project management higher order PIM in my view.
The MasterList was designed to incorporate the decision-maker, the decisoneer. You are the human tool with which it is intended to synergize. No software can substitute an algorithm for your mental process. Outlook wisely stayed non-specific in that regard. But, it fails to incorporate a possible vision by which it can become more and still remain universal.
Our only regret at The MasterList is that we did not have the clout to convince Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google to buy into our vision. They all have their own paradigms and their own agendas. The tool that does what The MasterList does has not yet been invented as a pure Internet application. Web-based PIMS are the future, and you will just fire up. Good design, along the lines of The MasterList, something ala a professional My Space, would make it fly. You would be ubiquitous and not even be thinking about it.
Tommy Vu can be reached about this article by emailing billnbrt@yahoo.com
A plan is not a decision. A database is a place to lay out choices, but it is not a decision-making tool. You are the decision making tool. The MasterList helps you make decisions by giving you the ability to organize lists and track task queues by project, category, type, priority, chronology. It allows you to view fields of activities with related knowledge connected in. This way you can see the fields and clear the fields according to a system of organized, rationale decision-making.
As stated, The MasterList is just an important tool. You are the decision-maker. One of the fatal flaws of industrial-grade mission management software is that the programmer's algorithms, keyboard sequences, and screen flow/report choices preempt the decision making process in favor of the built-in agendas. This degrades the ability to choose, indeed punishes it by providing no options to deal with insight, or to implement analysis of critical issues in a creative way.
The MasterList is a free-wheeling decisioneering tool that adapts to the way you organize, think, and choose.
Which brings me back to Microsoft and its failure to revitalize Outlook to become a decisioneering tool rather than a mere crippled PIM. If it did, it would circumvent the Innovator's Dilemma and could leap-frog ahead of Google. It's a shame because Microsoft is probably the only company besides Yahoo that has the bankroll and the server farm expertise to leapfrog ahead. But, unlike Outlook and its Office Suite, which was the killer application, which through Microsoft Exchange bound the world, and any organization of any size to its operating systems, Microsoft has no application which makes it indispensable in a world dominated by subscription based online applications tied to robust, secure, flexible My-Space shareable-like server farms.
The MasterList is and could have been that application. Outlook could easily be transformed to be that application. But, nothing happens. Our paradigm sits on the back shelf and Outlook's market is being chipped away. We don't need its email anymore. Are Word and Excel really so indispensable. And, its most important feature calendar and to-do list are no more sophisticated than they were in DOS 15 years ago.
So, The MasterList is and Outlook could be a tool for decisioneering. A good calendaring and to-list system needs to give you multiple ways to overview tasks, inventory them, store them, link stuff together fast when you need to organize it quickly and specially and separately on the fly. As the designer of the MasterList I have worked also within other companies and utilized industry-centric case and project management programs which are time-consuming, frustrating behemoths. Outlook has never attempted to compete with these non MS-products. The MasterList is genius compared to these products, but has had insufficient financial backing to market itself competitively. Again, Outlook could be that product. But, Microsoft seems to be unapproachable to this idea. The MasterList utilized with a personal decisioneering regimen beats David Allen and Franklin Day Planner hands down for keyboard facility of linking stuff in a way that makes you want to get back to it; and to know exactly how to do that in a balanced way.
In the real world of management, stuff comes up you can't do now and you need to make notes or lists about that. That's where The MasterList comes in. One of my favorite uses of The MasterList is debriefing an event. That means I am not going to engage in a decision to do all follow-up possibilities now. Only 3600 seconds in an hour and my potential choices are vast. So, my feeble brain cannot hold more than 3, 4, ideas, elements, bullets, of anything for more than a few minutes. That's where The MasterList comes in to store stuff on a project centric, task sequenced basis, or as an undifferentiated task, or in special "master" lists for dealing with fresh knee-buckling tasks screaming in from outlying spaces.
We are not to Prioritization yet. Let's suppose I decide I want to see what my task inventory is. This is "pare-down" prioritization made very easy by The MasterList. Let's say, in The MasterList, at a single key stroke from the home page, I pull up a list of all tasks for today for me and any in the past that are lagging. First thing I want to do is reduce the number of these tasks to a manageable subset for today. The MasterList has a built in triaging tool called Time-Blaster where with a right click I can blast a task 1 day, 3 days, 5, 7, 14, 28 and essentially pare it off my list and sequentially prioritize it quickly and even en bloc with basically 1 or 2 keystrokes.
How do you keep your tasks up to date? If it takes 7 keystrokes to clear a single task to the future, what do you do when you have 100 or 200 lagging tasks in your industry-specific management program, or in Outlook? Neither Outlook nor any industry specific PIM/management system has such a concept built into it that I know of.
With The MasterList hundreds of lagging tasks could easily be cleared and organized logically and sequentially to create a meaningful subset of today's plan within just 5 minutes.
The MasterList doesn't just organize by projects, it also has task codes which help because they can also be used as task organizing and priority signals. This is not unique to The MasterList, but we have unique reporting tools that take advantage of these "codes"; and, we know how to use them creatively. Oh yes, The MasterList has color prioritization too.
But, this note is about The MasterList as a decisioneering tool. Prioritization is important. But, when you are in an action landscape, either professionally or personally, one thing you want to do is cut down the number of possible decisions you have to make. The best number of possible decisions is one. That's hard to achieve. Most to-do list, PIM, and industry specific case/project management systems are designed to throw you dozens and hundreds of choices. The problem is that even an octopus can only put on one pant leg at a time. So, what would be least stressful for the user is a program that can help "pare down" the choices to one, or something close to one.
One of the best features of The MasterList is that it not only can handle 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or even 1,000,000 tasks, chores, links, ideas, concepts, plans, choices, notes for you or a team, it can then pare them down to 20, 2, 1 very fast. That's the real goal of a well designed professional case/project management higher order PIM in my view.
The MasterList was designed to incorporate the decision-maker, the decisoneer. You are the human tool with which it is intended to synergize. No software can substitute an algorithm for your mental process. Outlook wisely stayed non-specific in that regard. But, it fails to incorporate a possible vision by which it can become more and still remain universal.
Our only regret at The MasterList is that we did not have the clout to convince Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google to buy into our vision. They all have their own paradigms and their own agendas. The tool that does what The MasterList does has not yet been invented as a pure Internet application. Web-based PIMS are the future, and you will just fire up. Good design, along the lines of The MasterList, something ala a professional My Space, would make it fly. You would be ubiquitous and not even be thinking about it.
Tommy Vu can be reached about this article by emailing billnbrt@yahoo.com
