Mastering conversations for
context, Possibility, action

The third practice begins with the real-ization that all commitments are made in conversations. 3 The practice is to become an observer and facilitator of those conversations. There are three basic kinds of conversations.

˲ ˲ Context. Define the purpose, meaning, and value of actions.

˲ ˲ Possibility. Invent possibilities for future action (in the context).

˲ ˲ Action. Elicit the commitments that will realize specific possibilities and see them through to completion.

It would be a misunderstanding of Allen’s model (practice 1) to interpret his “actionable” items only in the third sense. Professionals who do not create context will find it difficult to get anyone to work with them. Although the action itself is performed in the third conversation, the other two are needed before people are willing to engage in a conversation for action. Sometimes you need to schedule time for context and possibility conversations, but more often you can insert them as needed as prefaces to your requests and offers (which open conversations for action).

A conversation for action takes place between a customer and performer; the customer makes a request (or accepts an offer) that the performer commits to fulfilling. The transaction between them can be visualized as a closed loop with four segments: request, negotiate, perform, accept. 5 Performers often make requests of others to get components for their own deliveries; thus a single request can evoke coordination in a larger network of people (for details on conversations for action and their skilled management, see 3–5).

commitment
management
presents
a big software
challenge.

To manage commitments means to manage the conversations leading to the fulfillment of those commitments. Have you or someone made the appropriate requests or offers? Who is responsible for performing each action? Who is responsible for accepting and declaring satisfaction with the result? Do you trust promises made to you by others along the way?

Managing capacity and Mood

The final aspect of the picture is your ability to manage your capacity and mood. You have the capacity for a commitment if you have the time and other resources needed to fulfill the commitment. If you do not have the resources, you will need to initiate conversations to get them—and you must manage those conversations as well. Generally, if you have accepted too many commitments relative to your capacity, you will feel overwhelmed, victimized, and sometimes panicked—poor moods for productivity. When you do not have the capacity, you can find yourself in a death spiral of an increasing backlog of broken promises, negative assessments about your performance, lack of willingness to trust you, and a personal sense of powerlessness. Over time, these bad moods increase stress and anxiety in your body and lead to chronic diseases. Not a pretty picture.

With a simple exercise, you can
assess whether you have the capacity
for your commitments and take cor-
rective steps when they are beyond
your capacity. 3, 4 On a three-column
spreadsheet, make one row for each
commitment. Put a description of the
commitment in the first column, the
number of weekly hours you need to
do it well in the second column, and
the number of weekly hours you ac-
tually spend in the third. Make sure
to include all your “big rock” com-
mitments including time for fam-
ily, sleep, and exercise. Many people
who feel chronically overwhelmed
discover from the exercise that their
column-two total exceeds 168, the
number of hours in a week. Even if the
column-two total fits, they discover
that their column-three total exceeds
100 hours per week for professional
commitments. In contrast, people
who feel productive and satisfied usu-
ally do not spend more than 60–80
hours per week on professional com-
mitments.

conclusion

Commitment management presents a big software challenge. There are software tools that help with some of the four practices separately. For example, OmniFocus ( omnigroup.com), Things ( culturedcode.com), and Taskwarrior ( taskwarrior.org) conform to Allen’s workflows in practice 1. Orchestrator ( orchmail.com) tracks conversations for action through their stages in practice 3; ActionWorks ( actiontech.com) goes further, mapping and managing entire business processes. Can someone design a coherent system that supports all four together?

If you learn the four commitment-management practices, you will be able to execute all your commitments productively and in a mood of fulfillment and satisfaction. All your customers will be satisfied and you will enjoy a strong, trustworthy reputation.

 

References

1. allen, D. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin, 2001.

2. Covey, s.r., merrill, r., and merrill, r. First Things First. simon & schuster, 1994.

3. Denning, P. and Dunham. r. The Innovator’s Way: Essential Practices for Successful Innovation. mIt Press, 2010.

4. Denning, P. accomplishment. Commun. ACM 46, 7 (July 2003), 19–23. DoI= http://doi.acm. org/10.1145/792704.792722.

5. winograd, t. and Flores, F. Understanding Computers and Cognition. addison-wesley, 1987.

 

Peter J. Denning ( [e-mail]) is Distinguished Professor of Computer science and Director of the Cebrowski Institute for innovation and information superiority at the naval Postgraduate school in monterey, Ca and is a past president of aCm.

Copyright held by author.