Who it is for
You want to start. You can try these practices on a personal project, in a community group, or in a job you are new to. Start from a person to help and a small problem you can observe.
You already build. Take something you are pleased with, a difficulty that keeps coming back, or a skill to deepen. The cards can help you examine a choice, look for feedback, or pass on reasoning you already use.
You want to grow a team. Choose a practice together, and the conditions you need to try it. You can propose this approach as a colleague, a mentor, or a manager, according to what you can commit.
You want to back other builders. Ask what help would make a next step possible. Time, an access, a review, or an introduction can be your starting point.
The four paths give a small selection of cards and a first attempt for each of those intentions.
Choosing a card
A card carries one idea and reads in a few minutes. You can pick it from a path, from the contents, or from the index by situation. You can also share a card directly with someone its subject concerns.
Read the scene first. Look for what resembles your situation and what differs. A familiar practice can give you a foothold; a proposal that fits badly can help you name a constraint. You can keep, change, or set aside the action proposed, saying why.
The header band gives the card’s type and its scope. Cards marked ⇄ are about working conditions: time, access, decisions, or rewards. If you cannot change them, use the card to prepare a concrete request with whoever can. The four formats are described below.
In what order
The ten capabilities suggest a path through. In practice you can work on several at once and come back to any of them as you need. The next subject to read can be the one you lack, the one you want to deepen, or the one you have a chance to pass on.
Mariam helps volunteers at a community group welcome newcomers. Several people turn up in the wrong place. She looks at an invitation with one of them, then proposes a clearer message to the organiser. They agree to try it at the next meeting. Mariam then asks what still caused trouble, and keeps an annotated version for whoever organises the next one.
She has exercised her curiosity, her understanding, her ability to ship, to check and to pass on, in a single attempt. If the new message does not help, she can pick the inquiry back up. She does not need to wait ten capabilities to leave a useful note.
From work to result
A task frames a request. What you make becomes useful when somebody can use it. Watching that use lets you compare the result to what you hoped for, then decide what comes next.
Sometimes the next step is a fix. Sometimes it is a handover, a new question, or stopping the attempt. When the need repeats, a procedure or a tool can be worth the effort. For a one-off situation, the service delivered can be enough.
From where you sit
This block shows what different people see of the same problem. The seats named depend on the subject; they are not a list of crafts you have to gather before you can start.
Engineering sees the constraints of the system, design those of use, product the choices between competing needs. Support hears what goes wrong after use. Sales and marketing know the questions that come before a choice. Operations sees the handovers, finance the commitments and their effects. Recruiting looks at the chances people get to show what they can do. Managers can act on the means and the rules.
One person can hold several of these seats. On a personal project, ask yourself who will use what you are preparing, who will have to maintain it, and who your choice will affect. Those questions already give you several points of view.
An example of reading across seats
On the card If you don’t understand why, you are not ready to build it, imagine a change to refunds:
- Support describes the question customers keep asking.
- Finance checks what lets someone follow the money and spot an error.
- Operations examines who the file goes to when a check is missing.
- Engineering and design look at how to make that step understandable and reliable.
Each brings different information. Before deciding, ask the person concerned to confirm what you understood of their work.
Moving to an attempt
Alone. Choose a bounded move. Write down what you hope to change, the time you can give it, and the fact you will look at afterwards. If you are changing something other people depend on, get their agreement before the attempt.
With a peer. Show a precise situation or piece of work. Ask for feedback on one question and explain your constraints. You can examine an example together without having to organise a team session.
As a team. Put a card next to a recent fact. Discuss the decisions and their effects; let each person choose what they want to tell. Agree an action, who carries it, and a moment to look at the result. The session format gives you an outline to adapt to your group.
To welcome or support someone. Read a card from a real case and explain the choices that were made. The person can ask what is missing and propose another way. That exchange is for learning together, not for assigning a level from the answers.
If a card calls for power or time you do not have, cut the attempt down, look for backing, or choose another card. Then come back to the fact observed: what changed, and what are you going to do about it?
Full cases and material to take up
Three examples show the move from cards to practice: a first attempt with no job and no team, an improvement with a decision and a handover, and six weeks of collective learning. Their observations are fictional and their limits are explicit.
The templates to adapt let you prepare an attempt, a decision, a comparison, a handover, a piece of backing, or a review. Choose a single one that serves your situation, rather than filling in a file in order to apply a card.
The four types of card
An idea to examine, a problem to understand, a move to try, and a condition to make possible do not call for the same reading. The book uses four types of card to make those differences visible.
The type says what use is proposed. It does not rank the subjects or the readers, and no card requires you to have read the ones before it.
Principle
A principle examines a plausible reflex, explains its limits, and offers another way of judging the situation.
The move: I understand what this reflex allows, what it can cost, and when it would be worth changing.
The block The reflex gives a starting point, not a voice to a category of people. The same reaction can suit one context and be costly in another. Read the conditions along with the advice.
Diagnostic
A diagnostic helps you recognise a situation before choosing a solution. It separates possible explanations and suggests what you would have to observe to tell them apart.
The move: I check my reading instead of jumping to a cause or an intention.
It is not a diagnosis of a person. An absent practice can come from a missing opportunity, a closed access, or an agreement that does not exist yet.
Practice
A practice gives you a move to adapt: a starting point, a way to try it, some limits, and feedback to organise.
The move: I can prepare or try this move inside my remit, then examine what it changes.
Making the move is not enough to show it works. An observation can lead you to change it, cut it back, or drop it. A first run on a constructed example can be a useful step too.
System
A system card carries the ⇄ mark. It examines the conditions that make acting possible: time, access, backing, priorities, rules, or recognition.
The move: I look at what helps or prevents the practice, then propose a condition to improve, with the people who can decide on it.
The card can serve someone who sets those conditions, a group discussing them, or somebody preparing a request. It does not authorise every reader to change a rule alone. Backing learning can also mean funding a slot of time, opening a limited access, or moving a priority.
The common contract
Whatever its type, a card has to let you examine six things:
- A situation you recognise, with no assumption of a flaw in the reader.
- An idea and a mechanism you can follow.
- An action or a request suited to what the reader can do.
- The agreements, backing, costs and limits that matter for that action.
- A fact to observe and a decision about what follows, including stopping or handing over.
- A discussion about practices or conditions, with no ranking of colleagues.
These run through the text. They are neither proof that the practice will work nor a checklist to impose on every situation.
When to read across seats
This block is optional. It appears when several roles genuinely change the information available, the decision to make, or the risk carried. Finance, operations, sales, community support, learning and technical functions can all appear, according to the subject. There is no closed list of crafts and no number of lines to reach.
A useful line offers a move particular to that role. Repeating the title with another craft’s name helps nobody: better to leave that line out, or the whole block. The role can be temporary and does not presuppose a job in a company.
Who can act
The header band gives a scope to pin down in your own situation. An inquiry can start on your own while the attempt needs an agreement. A decision about collective time, an access, or a rule calls for the matching authority. Some cards give a more precise scope than their type’s general wording.
That band is not an authorisation. Even a simple question can be hard to ask in some environments. Looking for an available ally, asking for a frame, or pausing may suit better. The cards do not ask you to make up for those conditions alone.
Where the examples come from
The scenes in this book illustrate a line of reasoning. Unless a source is named, their people, events and numbers are invented. Do not cite them as case studies.
A first-person account belongs to the author’s experience, with its limits. An attributed text or study can be found by its reference. Tell illustrative numbers apart from measures whose method is given. A qualitative finding stays useful with no number at all.
The cards propose assumptions to examine. The sources illuminate some of the reasoning; they do not validate the advice in your context. The bibliographic bearings make those connections inspectable.
The imported words
Builder means a person who sets out to improve a concrete situation and learns from what they observe. It is neither a title nor a rank.
Product can mean a function that connects needs, uses and decisions. The word does not always presuppose a product manager role; the card’s context says what is meant.
Ownership means making the follow-up of a result and the handovers explicit. That includes asking for help, adjusting a commitment, agreeing an end or a relay. It does not mean controlling everything, or accepting a responsibility with no means.
Reference means here what other people can learn from: a method explained, an example, a resource, or a practice passed on. Its value does not necessarily depend on being published.
To choose a first reading, the four paths give you ways in according to your intention. The cards are aids to judgement, not labels to stick on people.