The unofficial greeting in the bilingual Canadian city of Montreal has long been a friendly “Bonjour, Hi!”
But that standard is no more since a motion mandating store clerks to greet customers only in French was passed in Quebec’s provincial legislature.
The problem is that Montreal is officially French-speaking. But English is extremely popular, and the main language of tourism. So ingenious citizens came up with “Bonjour-hi” as a way to be inclusive, and signal that they are capable of speaking english and french.
We have something to learn here. When in doubt: offer options.
When giving a suggestion, offer two if you don’t know for sure
When asking boss for advice, offer two possible solutions
When trying to make a decision, consider at least two options
When somebody is [un]comfortable, offer them option to stay or leave
Picking one out of two is hard, so let’s recall what Agile Software Development teaches us:
When faced with two or more alternatives that deliver roughly the same value, take the path that makes future change easier.
Dave Thomas
By following “Bonjour-hi” approach, we are not diluting power or wasting time, we are showing that we are empathetic and thoughtful. Offering option doesn’t need to be artificial, stick to your guns when you are sure. But otherwise — consider two options.
In writing, there is whole zoo of techniques or challenges (see wiki and TV Tropes articles) that aspiring artist can borrow from. In movies, one can try to make a film using a single continuous shot (Russian Ark) or only using natural light (even indoors, see Barry Lyndon).
In software development one successful artificial constrained that comes to mind is 10+ Deploys per Day at Flickr that contributed to the launch of DevOps culture.
All these attempts at meeting strict restrictions (apart from being artistic goal) lead to generation of very creative solutions. When used as an exercise, this approach attempts to artificially limit most crucial resources, or resources we are bad at managing. You can’t finish project in a month? Try one day! Always over monthly budget? Here is $50 / $100 / $150 for a week of groceries.
All these examples teach us valuable skills of time and resource management, allow us to get better at scope definition, and help understand what is slowing us down.
To work through the problem, force your process to be starved for key resource. The approach is to pick something that feels the most painful, and try to aim for it. You can only pick things you control (no “10 Science papers a year” but “10 co-authorships a year” is doable). In academics it is most likely going to be time.
Triangle of doom. When restraining quality, we have to balance time, cost, and scope to achieve result. When one resource is limited, others need to be sacrificed
You will have to sacrifice some things: either pay more, or aim for lesser scientific achievement. But amount of information and training you’ll gain might be well worth it.
Updated on March 19, 2020:
As the world struggles through COVID-19, many labs are struggling with shut-downs, order to work from home, terrible expectations with salaries and funding, and more.
This is an opportunity. Not to out-work your competition. But to re-evaluate process, goals, and human aspect of the research. Each lab get an opportunity to take a break with daily grind, reset the clock, and establish new policies and management procedures.
It should not be just “do your best” but an opportunity for meta-discussion. We shouldn’t just “write”, but we should talk about how to write, and how to write better. Same for presentations. Same for lab management. Same for being a PI.
