MNTS #39
[Week 6 / Year 2024] Book Notes, Variation, Creativity Faucet, Funeral, OGWAU, Rain
Mainly, Notes To Self - my weekly attempt to compress everything noteworthy I read, watched, listened to, and discovered during the past week
New Post-Book Notes
Reading
Finished Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos by Donald J. Wheeler and have notes queued up to be published in a couple of weeks. Cedric Chin’s Becoming Data Driven, From First Principles provides a breakdown of my excitement surrounding this topic. Operations nerds need only apply.
The XmR chart is most potent as a cultural transformation lever
Wheeler likes to say that XmR charts are the beginning of knowledge. What he means by this, I think, is simple: the XmR chart is the quickest, most effective way to create org-wide understanding of variation. Put differently, the XmR chart — while also effective as an operational tool — is most potent as a cultural transformation lever. And this is because they’re so easy to plot, so easy to teach, and simple enough that misuse is easy to detect.
Started Algorithms to Live By Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths - I’ve especially enjoyed the Optimal Stopping and Explore/Exploit chapters. This essay by Henrik Karlsson introduces and explores these same topics.
Creativity faucet: Increase your creativity by Julian Shapiro - a similar confluence point with what I wrote in September, Making the Abstract Material.
It's easier to look at something bad then intuit how to make it better than to make something good out of thin air.
Listening
A couple of exciting music-related announcements hit my windshield this week, so I have been revisiting some rotation staples.
Arcade Fire is planning a limited tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first (best) album, Funeral. This makes me feel old and giddy simultaneously. Here's hoping they add a West Coast show.
Vampire Weekend announced that their new album, Only God Was Above Us, will be released on April 5th. The twins and I have made listening to their FOTB album part of our weekend running ritual so we are excited. The bubbly little intro guitar riff on Harmony Hall makes them squeal and bop as we glide out of the garage.
Random
A few snaps from an unusually cold and rainy couple of weeks in SoCal.
Until next week!
Stay spirited, stay resilient.
AP