Running the List

[mangosteen]

When I was in professional services, one of the things that I noticed I did was I ran a very specific list of diagnostics at the beginning of a customer meeting.

• Who is the most important person in the room?
• How technical is this group of people?
• What kind of mood are they in?
• Do they appear to be in a hurry, or are they settling in for the long haul

Comments

Everything is a song cue

[mizarchivist]

Reference/genealogy -
Names
Dates
Places

sift that out of the novella of an email.
It almost always boils down to what are they really looking for.

Toddler damage control-
-fluid levels
-fuel levels
-bio break required/taken lately?
-how much screen time has happened in the last 24 hours
-has there been adequate run time/how's the weather
-how distracted /unavailable have I been?
-how tired am I

[xeger]

Assumption: Anyone who has enough experience in a field runs through a diagnostic list to start doing triage on approaches to getting the job done.

Bad assumption :D I'd say that certain types of folk definitely do this (using Myers-Briggs as shorthand, probably the Thinking/Feeling axis), but the conscious list processing isn't universal (the end result, yes, but the method, no).

[brass_rat]

I think I agree with this comment. I don't consciously do this sort of list based processing. That said I will often find myself asking "what are you rally trying to do?" sometimes iteratively. In different situations I might ask "how do these things communicate?" or "what things are between here and there that could be causing this?" both of which are usually asked iteratively. So maybe this isn't as far from Mangostein's original hypothesis as I'd thought, but I still don't think it's the same either.

[dpolicar]

Basically, my job is to run the checklist... that is, I don't actually do the thing, I just write the detailed plan for doing the thing

[tigerbright]

IEP meeting:
- have I met and talked with all the participants before?
- which participants do I trust to be looking out for my kid rather than a checklist?
- for how long has my kid worked with this teacher/specialist?
- what things are they suggesting?
- what things have been tried before that didn't work?
- which suggestions are ABA under a different name?
- what tests did they do?

...and that's just off the top of my head...

[42itous]

I don't really have lists like that for my sewing work, but I certainly do for parenting.

Before going out in the morning:
- both she and I are breakfasted
- both are dressed
- both have had the hair pulled back from our faces in some way
- sunblock if applicable
- snacks and water packed
- clean diaper for her, empty bladder for me (I know the latter is on everyone's list, but I never had to make a conscious effort to remember it until I had a kid)

For her bedtime:
- bedtime milk
- teeth brushed
- night diaper
- pajamas (unless she opts out, which she sometimes does in the summer)
- two or three bedtime stories
- "snuggle and talk about the day"
- two or three songs
- "Mama pick me up"
... not that she would let me forget any of the last few. :)

I like my jobs, both of them, very much. Sometimes I run out of patience somewhere around the second bedtime story, though.