Thanks for this.
I think as I revisit these things repeatedly over the years, the areas they are intended to cover become more clear.
I’m sure if I reread GTD and/or Making it all Work, those things are right there in black and white, and I didn’t grok/appreciate them on the previous passes.
It’s a journey.
I re-read those 2 books on a regular basis, looking back it works out to about once every 2 years. And I’m due for both of them now. I think I’ll join in on that as part of my solstice review. I am wirking through a siginificant restructuring of my entire system so it’s a good time to remind myself of the basics.
If GTD alone works for someone. Awesome.
My observations are that GTD seems to be missing tools outside of the Obvious (now called Clear) domain.
Yes the goal is too often to move things from other domains into the Obvious domain. To do that requires other tools.
Example. When I work with teams building product, much of their work will reside in the Complicated domain. They know where they’re going, but don’t know how to get there. They need tools to help tame that Domain. In the world of Software Development that might be Story Mapping, Journey Maps and Impact Mapping. (Some links and references source here: Agile Glossary and Reference Library).
Even worse many programming tasks, never move into the Obvious/Clear domains. When I’m writing code to solve a novel problem, I don’t really know if it will take 1 day or 3 day. I don’t know if my first UI will go in the right direction. The uncertainty can’t be removed an we stay in the Complicated domain.
Complex example - when I’m considering creating a new course, the uncertainty is high. Do I know enough to do a good job? Does the market want or need this course? So I design experiments to test my questions. (Effectively Lean Startup without the labels). Some of the work with the experiments remains in the complex domain, but many parts or either Complicated or Clear.
My insight is that GTD is good or bad. It is that GTD doesn’t provide enough tools for a world that feeds us work that is Complicated or Complex. In some cases the work never enters the clear domain.
I don’t think it’s “missing” those tools - I think it’s not trying to specify those tools. It’s a system for personal productivity, not a corporate project planning tool.
Do the individual people on the team leave meetings with assigned tasks, and know what the next action they - as an individual - need to take? Defining and tracking that individual task / next action is GTD’s domain.
Which is probably why GTD doesn’t actually ask you to figure out how long a task will take. And it doesn’t ask you to waterfall plan your project. It just asks you to get clarity about the outcome you want to achieve, using whatever tools you need to do that, and then identify the next thing you need to do to move you closer to that goal - however that works for you in your world.
GTD doesn’t replace the other tools that clarify your objectives, manage multi-person projects, etc. It’s explicitly not designed for that, and DA refers to the need for other tools in the GTD book:
Organizing usually happens when you identify components and subcomponents, sequences of events, and/or priorities. What are the things that must occur to create the final result? In what order must they occur? What is the most important element to ensure the success of the project? This is the stage in which you can make good use of structuring tools ranging from informal bullet points scribbled on the back of an envelope to heavy-horsepower project-planning software. When a project calls for substantial objective control, you’ll need some type of hierarchical outline with components and subcomponents, and/or a Gantt-type chart showing stages of the project laid out over time, with independent and dependent parts and milestones identified in relationship to the whole.
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The final stage of planning comes down to decisions about the allocation and reallocation of physical resources to actually get the project moving. The question to ask here is, “What’s the next action?
Ultimately, at the project level, GTD insists that you plan and clarify objectives to the point where you can identify “next actions”, which you (or others) can execute. It’s not really a set of tools for doing that - it’s a basic set of principles.
Once you have your projects and your next actions, GTD on the personal level leads you to having an inventory of the things you’ve committed to do, and next actions to move those projects forward.
I do programming for a living, so I get it. Targets change. Things get re-specced in response to dozens of things. But ultimately, there has to be something I’m driving toward, and something I’m planning to do to get to that goal.
I would suggest that a project doesn’t ever have to be completely “clear”, but it needs to be defined enough that you can figure out how to move toward it. And once you figure that out, you should be able to get clarity on “what I do next”.
I’d appreciate a description or definition of “GTD alone” delivered with the same rigor used to describe Cynefin. Otherwise this starts to sound like a refrain I’ve encountered frequently: “Oh, I’m sure GTD is good enough for you. But my job is X, and it could never work for my job.” Problem is, a significant subset of those who say it to me are in my line of work — and one was on my team at the time.
It might be not a problem of GTD in your case, but of your misunderstanding of GTD. Have you read the David Allens book(s), or attended some of his courses?
Agree. And FWIW, I’d love to know how “Cynefin alone” stacks up. For example, how does Cynefin help team members track day-to-day tasks? 
To me, any discussion of “GTD alone” is kind of like saying “I need to build a house”, buying blueprint-making software, and then arguing that blueprints are useless because they don’t solve your electrical and plumbing problems for you.
You need smart electrical and plumbing people to do what smart people do (clarifying objectives, planning, applying domain knowledge, etc.), and then you can put together blueprints that reflect the decisions. Whether or not they use Cynefin or something else to do that doesn’t impact the utility of the blueprints.
It’s not either/or, and the idea that you’d only get to pick/have one tool is incredibly arbitrary.
All - it’s Christmas Day. Even non Christians like to take time to relax.
I will make this my last reply to this thread.
To those who questioned my understanding of GTD, I first tried to use it over 15 yrs ago. I still have 43 manilla folders. The system never stuck for me. The comments about learning GTD may not have been intended as condescending. However they feel that way.
@webwalrus Cynefin doesn’t tell you how to work. It is a lens that explains complexity. I shared the lens because I thought it would answer a comment that either Mike or Dave made during the episode.
All - I regret mentioning Cynefin at all. I don’t wish to persuade anyone to change their work habits or challenge your thinking. I shared it thinking you might appreciate another lens. I feel that hasn’t been received this way.
As I move to annual review time, I need to reconsider if this forum is where I want to put my energy.
As I noted above, it was helpful for me, and I appreciate your posts about it, and am reading the book now.
This has nothing to do with condescending, it is just, from what you wrote, that it seems to me, that you did not understand the basics of GTD, and what GTD is not intended to do!
But as I had a look at the website, you linked within your profile, it seems that you made your living by teaching SCRUM and AGIL (and within that obviously also Cynefin), and with that background, I understand your intention for your negative comments about GTD.
I am happy , if you will be still around here in the future, but if you try to promote the stuff you are teaching, it might be the better approach to do so within an own thread, instead of trying to “capture” a existing one, with a comment some people wouldn’t understand in the way you wanted it to be understood, so you do not have to wonder about the comments related to your own comment in the future.
Do what makes sense for your life, of course, but I’ve found the discussion in this thread interesting.
Understood. I certainly didn’t mean to sound condescending. I probably could have done a better job of writing my response to you in a way that only encouraged productive dialog. But please also bear in mind that your “GTD alone” comment also had immense condescension potential, even if that wasn’t your intent.
I think you and I will have to agree to disagree on the need for a Cynefin-like tool as a core component of GTD. I do feel that (and maybe this is your larger point), in general, there is a great need for more understanding of how to (and why we need to) identify and specify degrees of complexity before throwing ourselves, and our teams, into any project. I know I regularly encounter the confounding results of what happens when that facet of the work is overlooked.
I just don’t see, 15 or so years into my GTD practice, any evidence of GTD failing me in that area. GTD is what I use to “bookmark” where I was when I last touched a project. It very capably supports me in what I need to do, including supporting me in the work I surely must do to understand the simplicity or complexity of anything I try to tackle. But in all that time, neither the relative complexity of a project, nor the likelihood of it having a well-defined outcome, has ever taken away my ability to stay abreast of where I am now and what I intend to do next.
Ulli, I’m trying to find a way to read your comments in a positive light. This comes off as you believe that you have been appointed moderator of this forum and there are rules that we have all agreed to follow.
I made a comment about Christmas Day, in humour. It was intended to perhaps get everyone to stay off of email for the day.
At every stage you have made assumptions about me that are incorrect and then based on those assumptions you comment on my actions. First you comment my GTD knowledge without asking if I have experience. Then without acknowledging your error, you attack me now because Cynefin is connected to Agile. Why?
Let’s test the equivalence of something. If I were a MacOS/iOS contract developer (with a for hire sign on me website), would you attack me for posting a link to a geeky article about some obscure MacOS detail that I wrote? Of course not. I don’t post here to promote my business. As measured in Return on Time posting to talk.mpu has zero return for a lot of time. That is precisely why I commented to others that I wanted to bow out of the debate.
I didn’t hijack this conversation, I posted what I felt was a relevant comment. The normal thing to do in civil conversation, when you think someone has said something irrelevant is ignore. Why did you need to attack me not once, but twice? Both times on Christmas Day.
I used to think get notifications from this forum were a joy and you’ve taken a bit of the shine away. Instead of attacking why not have the courtesy to inquire of my intentions? Instead of attacking why not ignore?
@tonycraine Something seems have been lost here.
Please use the tools that make you happy.
