work in progress
Understanding 2 min System Scope: a team agreement and a call on means

⇄ You cannot ask for distribution while funding only features

What you are asking for

You want more people to discover or use the service. The schedule, though, only covers building it, with no time to explain, support, or gather feedback.

What the system hears

With no means and no ruling, that extra work will have to come out of something else, often without anyone discussing it.

What that produces

Distribution can run through demonstrations, a partnership, internal training, an accompanied sale, or publications. The right channel depends on the recipients and on the service. Funding distribution therefore does not mean imposing a writing slot on everyone. The work also includes the preparation and the follow-up: answering questions, checking access, helping with the first use. A visible activity such as a published piece is only one possible part of the effort. What you have to look at is whether the people you are aiming at manage to use what was built.

When the review shows only build tasks, that effort can stay invisible. Adding the questions learned, the uses observed, and the next attempts helps decide what place it should have. That does not turn every conversation into an obligation to produce an immediate result.

Timescales and costs vary. No standard hour every fortnight fits every project. Discuss the real capacity, the skills needed, and the work the attempt displaces with whoever carries the budget or the priorities.

It can be reasonable to stop a channel or cut the effort when the context changes. Explain the call and its consequences rather than protecting an activity on principle. A team that knows why something changed can adapt its commitments.

The decision

→ Choose a use goal, a channel, and a bounded attempt with a willing or mandated owner. Plan preparation, delivery and follow-up.
→ Name the time or budget available and what gets displaced. Someone with no budget authority can prepare that proposal for a ruling.
→ On an agreed date, examine who was actually reached, the first uses, the feedback and the cost. Decide to carry on, change, or stop.

For an internal or community project, the attempt can be an accompanied presentation to a handful of recipients. A public audience is not a condition of success.

From where you sit

To discuss

Which effort would make our service more reachable for the people it is for, and what would we have to displace to try it?

Discuss this