Self Healing Systems
My 5 roommates and I spent 4 1/2 years coming up with a system for keeping our house clean that works. And we did! More importantly, we think we know how it works.
Our chore chart is a self healing system, and it shares characteristics with other self healing systems. It:
- uses simple rules
- expects & tolerates faults
- visualizes work
- encourages forgiveness
- discourages heroes
- is gameable
Perhaps the same traits that are keeping my house clean can ensure you deliver value to your customers.
Watch a lightning talk I gave about this system at SeaSPIN earlier this evening :
September 10th, 2010 at 4:48 am
It’s hard to make out slides from the video. Any chance you could post a pic of the chore board, to get an idea of what is actually on it? How you handle doing your own stuff, like your own dishes, is that a a chore? Do you use a preset group of magnets, or write on sticky notes for each one?
September 15th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Here’s a link to the presentation :
http://jeremylightsmith.com/files/self_healing_systems.pdf
September 28th, 2010 at 5:59 am
Awesome thanks, the preso link makes it clearer what your implementation was – premade stickies for the commonly needed chore buckets.
September 28th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Actually, magnets, but same deal. We got the magnetic sheets of paper that you can print on with an inkjet and then cut, and that’s how we made our tasks and southpark characters. The board itself is just a sheet of metal screwed into the wall :).