Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 497 answers
Identify one recurring synchronous meeting that could be partially or fully replaced by asynchronous collaboration. Design an async alternative using this template: (1) Document format — what information will be shared and in what structure? (2) Contribution protocol — who contributes, by when,.
Conduct a 'team memory audit.' List the ten most important pieces of knowledge your team holds — architectural decisions, operational procedures, customer context, historical lessons. For each item, answer three questions: (1) Where is this knowledge stored? (Specific location — not 'somewhere in.
Map one critical information flow in your team. Choose a type of information that matters — customer feedback, production alerts, requirement changes, or technical discoveries. Trace its path from origin to the person who acts on it. For each step, answer: (1) How does the information move from.
Track your team's attention allocation for one week. At the end of each day, have each team member spend two minutes recording how they spent their time across three categories: (1) Planned work — tasks aligned with the team's stated priorities. (2) Reactive work — tasks that were not planned but.
Map your team's cognitive load distribution. For each team member, estimate three dimensions on a 1-5 scale: (1) Task complexity — how cognitively demanding is their current work? (2) Context switching — how many different contexts do they manage simultaneously? (3) Interrupt load — how frequently.
Choose a term that your team uses frequently but may define differently — 'done,' 'ready for review,' 'production-ready,' 'priority,' 'tech debt,' or a domain-specific term. Ask each team member to independently write a one-paragraph definition. Collect the definitions and compare them. Identify.
Introduce one epistemic practice to your team this week. Choose the one most relevant to your team's current weakness: (1) If your team makes overconfident predictions, introduce calibrated confidence — have each member predict the outcome of the current sprint's riskiest item with a probability,.
Conduct a team cognitive audit using this ten-dimension framework. Rate each dimension 1-5 (1 = absent or broken, 3 = functional but inconsistent, 5 = well-designed and maintained). (1) Shared mental models — does the team have aligned understanding of the system, process, and goals? (2).
Assess your own epistemic contribution to your team using this self-audit. Rate yourself 1-5 on each dimension. (1) Do I calibrate my confidence — do I distinguish what I know from what I assume? (2) Do I surface assumptions — do I make my reasoning visible rather than presenting only my.
Identify one organizational schema that shapes your team's or organization's behavior. Start with a recurring pattern: a type of decision that always goes the same way, a type of initiative that always gets funded (or never does), a type of risk that always gets flagged (or ignored). Ask: 'What.
Identify one implicit schema in your organization by looking for a behavior that 'everyone just does' without being able to articulate why. Common examples: Who gets invited to which meetings? What information is shared broadly versus held tightly? Which types of initiatives get funded without.
Run a schema surfacing session with your team or leadership group. Choose one strategic question the organization is currently debating. Ask each participant to independently write answers to three prompts: (1) 'I believe the fundamental challenge we face is...' (2) 'I believe the right approach.
Write your organization's strategy as a single schema statement — not what the organization does, but what it believes about how it creates value. Use this format: 'We win by [doing X] for [audience Y] in a way that [differentiator Z].' Then ask two colleagues to write the same statement.
Choose one process your team follows routinely. Write down the process steps, then extract the assumptions embedded in each step. For each step, ask: 'What does this step assume about the risk, the people, the technology, or the environment?' For example, a code review process might embed these.
Choose one of your organization's stated values. For each, answer three questions: (1) What would this value look like if it were fully operational — what specific behaviors, decisions, and tradeoff resolutions would you observe? (2) What does your organization actually do in the situations where.
Map your organization's culture as a set of interacting schemas. List the organization's operating schemas in five categories: (1) Identity — 'We are a [type] organization.' (2) Strategy — 'We win by [approach].' (3) Process — 'Work flows through [mechanism].' (4) Values — 'We prioritize [X] over.
Identify one recurring cross-functional conflict in your organization. Ask each side to independently answer three questions: (1) 'What is the goal of our work together?' (2) 'What does quality look like?' (3) 'How should priorities be set?' Compare the answers. The divergences are schema.
Think about your first month at your current organization. What were the three most important things you learned — not technical skills, but how the organization works? How did you learn them: through formal onboarding, through a mentor, through observation, or through making a mistake? For each,.
Identify one organizational schema that has been stable for more than five years. Ask: (1) What environmental conditions was this schema adapted to when it formed? (2) Have those conditions changed? (3) If the conditions have changed, has the schema been updated to reflect the new conditions? (4).
Create a knowledge map for your team. List the five to ten most critical knowledge domains for your team's work. For each domain, list every team member and rate their knowledge level: 'can teach' (4), 'independent' (3), 'with documentation' (2), 'no knowledge' (1). Sum each domain's scores and.
Identify the three people on your team or in your organization whose departure would cause the most knowledge disruption. For each person, list their unique knowledge — the things they know that no one else knows. Then assess: How much of that knowledge is documented? How much is externalized in.
Choose one important system, process, or decision that your team is responsible for. Check the existing documentation. Does it capture only what (current state, procedures, configurations) or does it also capture why (design rationale, alternatives considered, tradeoffs accepted)? If the.
Identify one persistent problem in your team or organization — an issue that has been addressed multiple times without lasting resolution. For this problem, distinguish between single-loop and double-loop responses. Single-loop: What actions has the organization taken to address the problem within.
Conduct a schema debt audit for your team or organization. List five to seven core assumptions the organization operates from (use the schema surfacing methods from L-1623 if needed). For each assumption, answer: (1) When was this assumption formed? (2) What were the conditions when it formed? (3).