Iterative Process Quotes

Science is often described as an iterative and cumulative process, a puzzle solved piece by piece, with each piece contributing a few hazy pixels of a much larger picture. But the arrival of a truly powerful new theory in science often feels far from iterative. Rather than explain one observation or phenomenon in a single, pixelated step, an entire field of observations suddenly seems to crystallize into a perfect whole. The effect is almost like watching a puzzle solve itself.

Developing and implementing IT governance design effectiveness and efficiency can be a multidirectional, interactive, iterative, and adaptive process.

Learning is an iterative process. It takes time, context-specific experience, and feedback to learn.

This book is about entanglements. To be entangled is not simply to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence. Existence is not an individual affair. Individuals do not preexist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as pare of their entangled intra-relating . Which is not to say that emergence happens once and for all, as an event or as a process that takes place according to some external measure of space and of time, but rather that time and space, like matter and meaning, come into existence, are iteratively recon figured through each intra-action, there by making it impossible to differentiate in any absolute sense between creation and renewal, beginning and returning, continuity and discontinuity, here and there, past and future.

There must be a trick to the train of thought, a recursive formula. A group of neurons starts working automatically, sometimes without external impulse. It is a kind of iterative process with a growing pattern. It wanders about in the brain, and the way it happens must depend on the memory of similar patterns.

Our techniques were the products of experiential learning; they were developed by agents in the field, negotiating through crisis and sharing stories of what succeeded and what failed. It was an iterative process, not an intellectual one, as we refined the tools we used day after day.

It was the Scrum Master’s job to guide the team toward continuous improvement—to ask with regularity, “How can we do what we do better?” Ideally, at the end of each iteration, each Sprint, the team would look closely at itself—at its interactions, practices, and processes—and ask two questions: “What can we change about how we work?” and “What is our biggest sticking point?” If those questions are answered forthrightly, a team can go faster than anyone ever imagined.

Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right.” Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from slightly less wrong to slightly less wrong than that, and then to even less wrong than that, and so on. We

Voltaire wrote, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”188 Steve Jobs told the Macintosh team that “real artists ship.”189 New ideas are never perfect right out of the chute, and you don’t have time to wait until they get there. Create a product, ship it, see how it does, design and implement improvements, and push it back out. Ship and iterate. The companies that are the fastest at this process will win.

The reality is that while the Internet allows content to be written iteratively, the audience does not read or consume it iteratively. Each member usually sees what he or she sees a single time—a snapshot of the process—and makes his or her conclusions from that.

Youth is as easily wasted as a fine wine consumed by a drunken man. There is no poetry in aging, and Javert lived out the process in its most hideous iteration.

Building habit-forming products is an iterative process and requires user behavior analysis and continuous experimentation.

involving into an iterative process of simplifying the 'complexity', and then transforming this 'simplicity into newer complexity' while integrating the unsolved domain for an unprecedented success.

Differences: Scrum: - Timeboxed iterations prescribed. Kanban: - Timeboxed iterations optional. Can have separate cadences for planning, release, and process improvement. Can be event - driven instead of timeboxed.

as well as for the team making restaurant reservations, experimenting along the way paid off. The iterative process, where small changes are made in response to customer feedback, allowed them to optimize their strategy on the fly.

Get over “blame” and “credit” and get on with “accurate” and “inaccurate.” Worrying about “blame” and “credit” or “positive” and “negative” feedback impedes the iterative process that is essential to learning. Remember that what has already happened lies in the past and no longer matters except as a lesson for the future.

It’s often the case that teams working in agile processes do not actually go back to improve the user interface of the software. But, as the saying goes, “it’s not iterative if you only do it once.” Teams need to make a commitment to continuous improvement, and that means not simply refactoring code and addressing technical debt but also reworking and improving user interfaces. Teams must embrace the concept of UX debt and make a commitment to continuous improvement of the user experience.

Global corporations have the human capital, the financial resources, the technology, the international footprint, the power of markets and the profit motivation to build a better world. NGOs will be essential partners...Governments will be essential partners...By engaging together through an iterative process, we will achieve "A Better World.

The process of arriving at the right answer by eliminating the negative hypothesis in an iterative manner does not work when dealing with fairy tales.

Iterative development, when accompanied with reasonable end-of-iteration reviews—product, technical, process, team—is also self-correcting.

I find that most people serve practical needs. They have an understanding of the difference between meaning and relevance. And at some level my mind is more interested in meaning than in relevance. That is similar to the mind of an artist. The arts are not life. They are not serving life. The arts are the cuckoo child of life. Because the meaning of life is to eat. You know, life is evolution and evolution is about eating. It's pretty gross if you think about it. Evolution is about getting eaten by monsters. Don't go into the desert and perish there, because it's going to be a waste. If you're lucky the monsters that eat you are your own children. And eventually the search for evolution will, if evolution reaches its global optimum, it will be the perfect devourer. The thing that is able to digest anything and turn it into structure to sustain and perpetuate itself, for long as the local puddle of negentropy is available. And in a way we are yeast. Everything we do, all the complexity that we create, all the structures we build, is to erect some surfaces on which to out compete other kinds of yeast. And if you realize this you can try to get behind this and I think the solution to this is fascism. Fascism is a mode of organization of society in which the individual is a cell in the superorganism and the value of the individual is exactly the contribution to the superorganism. And when the contribution is negative then the superorganism kills it in order to be fitter in the competition against other superorganisms. And it's totally brutal. I don't like fascism because it's going to kill a lot of minds I like. And the arts is slightly different. It's a mutation that is arguably not completely adaptive. It's one where people fall in love with the loss function. Where you think that your mental representation is the intrinsically important thing. That you try to capture a conscious state for its own sake, because you think that matters. The true artist in my view is somebody who captures conscious states and that's the only reason why they eat. So you eat to make art. And another person makes art to eat. And these are of course the ends of a spectrum and the truth is often somewhere in the middle, but in a way there is this fundamental distinction. And there are in some sense the true scientists which are trying to figure out something about the universe. They are trying to reflect it. And it's an artistic process in a way. It's an attempt to be a reflection to this universe. You see there is this amazing vast darkness which is the universe. There's all these iterations of patterns, but mostly there is nothing interesting happening in these patterns. It's a giant fractal and most of it is just boring. And at a brief moment in the evolution of the universe there are planetary surfaces and negentropy gradients that allow for the creation of structure and then there are some brief flashes of consciousness in all this vast darkness. And these brief flashes of consciousness can reflect the universe and maybe even figure out what it is. It's the only chance that we have. Right? This is amazing. Why not do this? Life is short. This is the thing we can do.

Managing your small failures (iterations) and major failures (pivots) as part of the entrepreneurial development process to save you from a fatal failure that has been the hallmark of most entrepreneurial journeys.

Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right.” Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from slightly less wrong to slightly less wrong than that, and then to even less wrong than that, and so on. We are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection. We

Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right.” Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from slightly less wrong to slightly less wrong than that, and then to even less wrong than that, and so on. We are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection. We shouldn’t

The secret to modern F1 is not really to do with big ticket items; it is about hundreds of thousands of small items, optimized to the nth degree. People think that things like engines are based upon high-level strategic decisions, but they are not. What is an engine except many iterations of small components? You start with a sensible design, but it is the iterative process that guides you to the best solution. Success is about creating the most effective optimization loop.

Science is often described as an iterative and cumulative process, a puzzle solved piece by piece, with each piece contributing a few hazy pixels of a much larger picture. But the arrival of a truly powerful new theory in science often feels far from iterative. Rather than explain one observation or phenomenon in a single, pixelated step, an entire field of observations suddenly seems to crystallize into a perfect whole. The effect is almost like watching a puzzle solve itself. Varmus

Visionaries are especially afraid of a false negative: that customers will reject a flawed MVP that is too small or too limited. […] The solution to this dilemma is a commitment to iteration. You have to commit to a locked-in agreement—ahead of time—that no matter what comes of testing the MVP, you will not give up hope. Successful entrepreneurs do not give up at the first sign of trouble, nor do they persevere the plan right into the ground. Instead, they process a unique combination of perseverance and flexibility.

A sound idea is a form of energy. It can not be destroyed. It evolves from inspiration, to a function of preparation, then determination - till the ideator's dream becomes actualized in real life At the very least, success is a second iteration of the original, unscripted Idea So your idea refinement process needs to be test-driven Test Determine on time if investment in terms of effort and time is worth it Work Smart Fail early, fail often, Success lies on the paths yet to be treaded, Open your mind, Think Disruption, Be Flexible Be AGILE I think this is an idea worth sharing

Just as reproductive sex amplifies genes and their expressed traits, perpetuating the iterative cycle of life, shopping and purchasing are the acts required for innovations to capture resources and reproduce the flow of an innovation’s expressed capability. This economic process of selective value informational feedback amplifies successful innovations.

Many traditional models assume that change always occurs in a linear, sequential fashion, with clearly defined stages. For instance, Lewin's framework (Unfreeze-Change-Refreeze) implies a beginning, middle, and end to the change process. This doesn't reflect the messy, iterative reality of change, or life to be quite frank. Furthermore, change doesn’t really have an end state.

Executives, project leaders, and development teams must embrace a different view of the new product development world, one that not only recognizes change in the business world, but also understands the power of driving down iteration costs to enable experimentation and emergent processes. Understanding these differences and how they affect product development is key to understanding APM.

The R6 Resilience Change Management Framework is a cyclical framework that consists of six iterative puzzle pieces: 1. Review the Macro/Micro Changes: This iteration emphasizes the importance of scanning (mostly) the external environment to identify emerging trends, disruptions, and opportunities. By understanding the broader context in which the organization operates, leaders can anticipate future challenges and proactively adapt their strategies. There should never be a time in the organizations existence where it stops reviewing the macro changes. There are times, though, when micro changes (internal) are where the focus needs to be. 2. Reassess the Business’ Capabilities in the Context of Macro Changes: This iteration is fundamentally about “who are we, and how can we really add value?” It also involves a critical evaluation of the organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in light of the identified macro changes. This reassessment helps to identify areas where the organization needs to adapt or transform its capabilities to remain competitive. This iteration is largely inward-looking, focused on the organization. But it tempered with the idea that “how do our capabilities allow us to add value to our customers lives (existing or new).” 3. Redefine Target Market(s) Based on Reassessment of Capabilities: This iteration focuses on aligning the organization's target markets with the evolving needs and preferences of customers, the changing competitive landscape, and the new reality of the businesses capabilities. This may involve identifying new customer segments, developing personalized offerings, creating seamless omnichannel experiences, or approaching the same target market in new ways (offering them new kinds of value, or the same kind of value in new ways). 4. Redirect Capabilities Toward Redefined Target Market: This iteration involves realigning the organization's resources, processes, and strategies to effectively serve the redefined target markets. This may require investments in new technologies, optimization of supply chains, or the development of innovative products and services. 5. Restructure the Organization: This iteration focuses on adapting the organization's structure, culture, and talent to support the desired changes. This may involve creating agile teams, fostering a culture of innovation, or empowering employees to make decisions through new policies. 6. Repeat in Perpetuity – or – Render Paradigm Shift [R6-RPS]: This iteration underscores the importance of continuous monitoring, evaluation, and adaptation. The R6 framework is not a one-time process in response to a change event, but an iterative cycle that enables organizations to remain agile and resilient in the face of ongoing change. Additionally, there are times when before repeating the cycle, a business may want/need to render an external paradigm shift by introducing a product or service or way of doing things that fundamentally changes the market – fundamentally changes the value exchange between customers, employees and organizations.

…To not speak honestly would cost me my self respect. I’m not afraid of criticism; I welcome it. What I’m passing along here is just the latest iteration of my learning process, which is to: Develop my perspectives through direct experiences and research, to write up what I learn, to stress test it by showing it to smart people, to explore our differences if and when we have them, to evolve my thinking some more, and, to do that over-and-over again, until I die.

In the early 2010s, Nvidia—the designer of graphic chips—began hearing rumors of PhD students at Stanford using Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) for something other than graphics. GPUs were designed to work differently from standard Intel or AMD CPUs, which are infinitely flexible but run all their calculations one after the other. GPUs, by contrast, are designed to run multiple iterations of the same calculation at once. This type of “parallel processing,” it soon became clear, had uses beyond controlling pixels of images in computer games. It could also train AI systems efficiently.

On the day the company starts, there is very limited customer input to a product specification. The company doesn’t know who its initial customers are (but it may think it knows) or what they will want as features. One alternative is to put Product Development on hold until the Customer Development team can find those customers. However, having a product you can demonstrate and iterate is helpful in moving the Customer Development process along. A more productive approach is to proceed with Product Development, with the feature list driven by the vision and experience of the company’s founders.

iterative and concurrent. An iterative server iterates through the following steps: I1. Wait for a client request to arrive. I2. Process the client request. I3. Send the response back to the client that sent the request. I4. Go back to step I1. The problem with an iterative server occurs when step I2 takes a long time. During this time no other clients are serviced. A concurrent server, on the other hand, performs the following steps: C1. Wait for a client request to arrive. C2. Start a new server instance to handle this client’s request. This may involve creating a new process, task, or thread, depending on what the underlying operating system supports. This new server handles one client’s entire request. When the requested task

In order to find and eliminate a Constraint, Goldratt proposes the “Five Focusing Steps,” a method you can use to improve the Throughput of any System: 1. Identification: examining the system to find the limiting factor. If your automotive assembly line is constantly waiting on engines in order to proceed, engines are your Constraint. 2. Exploitation: ensuring that the resources related to the Constraint aren’t wasted. If the employees responsible for making engines are also building windshields, or stop building engines during lunchtime, exploiting the Constraint would be having the engine employees spend 100 percent of their available time and energy producing engines, and having them work in shifts so breaks can be taken without slowing down production. 3. Subordination: redesigning the entire system to support the Constraint. Let’s assume you’ve done everything you can to get the most out of the engine production system, but you’re still behind. Subordination would be rearranging the factory so everything needed to build the engine is close at hand, instead of requiring certain materials to come from the other end of the factory. Other subsystems may have to move or lose resources, but that’s not a huge deal, since they’re not the Constraint. 4. Elevation: permanently increasing the capacity of the Constraint. In the case of the factory, elevation would be buying another engine-making machine and hiring more workers to operate it. Elevation is very effective, but it’s expensive—you don’t want to spend millions on more equipment if you don’t have to. That’s why Exploitation and Subordination come first: you can often alleviate a Constraint quickly, without resorting to spending more money. 5. Reevaluation: after making a change, reevaluating the system to see where the Constraint is located. Inertia is your enemy: don’t assume engines will always be the Constraint: once you make a few Changes, the limiting factor might become windshields. In that case, it doesn’t make sense to continue focusing on increasing engine production—the system won’t improve until windshields become the focus of improvement. The “Five Focusing Steps” are very similar to Iteration Velocity—the more quickly you move through this process and the more cycles you complete, the more your system’s Throughput will improve.

To be entangled is not simply to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence. Existence is not an individual affair. Individuals do not preexist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating. Which is not to say that emergence happens once and for all, as an event or as a process that takes place according to some external measure of space and of time, but rather that time and space, like matter and meaning, come into existence, are iteratively reconfigured through each intra-action, thereby making it impossible to differentiate in any absolute sense between creation and renewal, beginning and returning, continuity and discontinuity, here and there, past and future.

I’ve repeated this process with virtually every major classic-rock artist and band that I love. I am now fully versed in the postsixties work of the Kinks, even the double-album rock operas that go on for forty-two hours. I enjoy at least one Doors album, An American Prayer, that was completed and released seven years after Jim Morrison died. I will defend not only both Page & Plant albums, but also the Page & Coverdale record. I own albums by every iteration of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and will argue that Crosby & Nash is in fact better than CSNY (though not CSN). I’m still not crazy about nineties Springsteen, but I will listen to Human Touch and Lucky Town when I don’t feel like playing Darkness on the Edge of Town or The River for the ten thousandth time. Come to think of it, Lucky Town is in fact much better than most people (even myself) give it credit for.

Clients, I soon learned, could be very demanding; I still had limited direct contact with them, which suited me just fine. From what I could gather, they would routinely be completely unable to articulate their requirements, at which point, in desperation, the designers would create some artwork for them based on the few vague hints they had managed to elicit. After many hours of work, involving a full team of staff, the work would be submitted to the client for approval. At that point, the client would say, "No. That's exactly what I don't want." There would be several tortuous iterations of this process before the client finally declared his or herself satisfied with the end results. Inevitably, Bob said, the artwork that was signed off on at the end of the process was virtually identical to the first piece of work submitted, which the client had immediately dismissed as unsuitable.

adapt the concept of complex grief into its current iteration—impossible grief applies to cases where the grief-processing mechanism has been obstructed, like a clog in a drain. Family members of people who were in the towers the day they fell, who were never given remains to bury. Women who were assaulted by a classmate, a boyfriend, a friend, who are told by almost everyone that what they experienced does not qualify as assault. Impossible grief is grief that does not adhere to a social contract of justice or human rituals that have existed since the dawn of time. A death with no body, a violation by someone who is not seen as the transgressor. A woman whose relationship wasn’t recognized as legitimate at the time she lost her partner. Tina teaches people how to snare the obstruction so that grief can make its way through the proper channels unencumbered. It’s always running in your veins, but better that than a life-threatening clot.

My fear is that much of the antiracist literature is an iteration of the same process of maintaining and reaffirming whiteness. Little in the mainstream antiracist narrative focuses on challenging the idea of “white people” itself. Rather, it takes the category as an unassailable truth, with the emphasis placed instead on making white people nicer, through a combination of begging, demanding, cajoling, and imploring. “Whiteness” was a concept popularized by convincing one group of people it would make their lives better, and demonstrating it through the brutal dehumanization of another group. Now all “whites,” even those with little power in any other quarter of their lives, had the power of life and death over these “others.” This is a “truth” that’s had close to five hundred years to really embed itself. The question I pose is this: Does telling “white” people that racial equality means that their lives have to literally get worse (“but thems the breaks”) really seem up to the challenge of uprooting this centuries-old pernicious promise?

How, then, to proceed? My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with “P” on this side (“Positive”) and “N” on this side (“Negative”). I try to read what I’ve written uninflectedly, the way a first-time reader might (“without hope and without despair”). Where’s the needle? Accept the result without whining. Then edit, so as to move the needle into the “P” zone. Enact a repetitive, obsessive, iterative application of preference: watch the needle, adjust the prose, watch the needle, adjust the prose (rinse, lather, repeat), through (sometimes) hundreds of drafts. Like a cruise ship slowly turning, the story will start to alter course via those thousands of incremental adjustments. The artist, in this model, is like the optometrist, always asking: Is it better like this? Or like this? The interesting thing, in my experience, is that the result of this laborious and slightly obsessive process is a story that is better than I am in “real life” – funnier, kinder, less full of crap, more empathetic, with a clearer sense of virtue, both wiser and more entertaining. And what a pleasure that is; to be, on the page, less of a dope than usual.

The future of the labor market as we know it is contingent on many different things. It is by and large an iterative process in which we may only know the true outcome by repeated evaluations and followups of each implemented change and/or innovation. Therefore, securing a system of necessary checks-and-balances will be of paramount importance to ensure a successful digital transformation.

Achieving work-life balance is a process. Getting it right is iterative. You get better at it with experience and observation, and eventually, after some time passes, you notice it’s not getting harder anymore. It’s just what you do.

Perhaps the most widely used technique at Amazon for these situations is the Correction of Errors (COE) process, based upon the “Five Whys” method developed at Toyota and used by many companies worldwide. When you see an anomaly, ask why it happened and iterate with another “Why?” until you get to the underlying factor that was the real culprit. This COE process requires the team who had a significant error or problem to write a document describing the problem or error, and to drill down on what caused it by asking and answering “Why?” five times in order to get to the true root cause.

It’s fundamentally an iterative process of thinking up different ways to create a part, trying different materials, processes, and design options to come up with the best parts and strategies for manufacturing them.

It’s not just software itself—it’s the fundamental agility of software that drives Software People. It starts by listening to customers, rapidly building initial solutions to their problems, getting feedback, and then constantly iterating and improving. With this progression of computation, Software People can apply this software process to more and more of the world’s problems. I particularly enjoy seeing it arise in traditionally hardware-centric fields because when you see a Software Person running the playbook in the field of hardware, you can see the evolution play out physically in plastic, metal, and glass.

Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right.” Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from slightly less wrong to slightly less wrong than that, and then to even less wrong than that, and so on. We are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection. We shouldn’t seek to find the ultimate “right” answer for ourselves, but rather, we should seek to chip away at the ways that we’re wrong today so that we can be a little less wrong tomorrow.

[New Orleans shows us that we cannot wait until the next disaster to begin planning. We must be proactive and guided by the principles of equity and inclusion. Honolulu reminds us that this work will be an iterative process spanning decades. The decisions we make now will have to be revisited in the future, when new ones will confront us. New York City reminds us to strive for positive transformation. The possibility of a community-driven adaptation project that provides multiple benefits can be achieved.]

In fact, like Norton and Ramadan, most entrepreneurs are “replicative,” that is, they take an existing product or idea and make it better. This is what Howard Head and James Dyson did. This process of incremental or iterative improvement is the basis of almost all innovation. Innovation proceeds in phases; inventors take what exists and create accretive combinations. Often an innovation comes down to having brought existing things together in a way never before seen.

Design contains uncertainty No matter how much data you have No matter how many insights you have Uncertainty is a natural part of the process‍ Stay flexible Test, learn Adjust your plans As needed

Embracing design thinking principles fosters creativity, innovation, and problem-solving skills, empowering students to approach challenges with a fresh perspective and develop viable solutions through iterative processes of ideation and prototyping.

No one is saying you can’t take a minute to think, Dammit, this sucks. By all means, vent. Exhale. Take stock. Just don’t take too long. Because you have to get back to work. Because each obstacle we overcome makes us stronger for the next one. But . . . No. No excuses. No exceptions. No way around it: It’s on you. We don’t have the luxury of running away. Of hiding. Because we have something very specific we’re trying to do. We have an obstacle we have to lean into and transform. No one is coming to save you. And if we’d like to go where we claim we want to go—to accomplish what we claim are our goals—there is only one way. And that’s to meet our problems with the right action. Therefore, we can always (and only) greet our obstacles with energy with persistence with a coherent and deliberate process with iteration and resilience with pragmatism with strategic vision with craftiness and savvy and an eye for opportunity and pivotal moments Are you ready to get to work?

First, iteration frees people to experiment, as Edison did with such success. “I need the freedom to just try a bunch of crap out. And a lot of times it doesn’t work,” Docter told me. With this process, that’s fine. He can try again. And again. Until he gets something that burns bright and clear, like Edison’s lightbulb. “If I knew I have to do this only once and get it right, I’d probably hew to the things that I know work.” And for a studio built on creativity, that would be a slow death. Second, the process ensures that literally every part of the plan, from the broad strokes to the fine details, is scrutinized and tested. Nothing is left to be figured out when the project goes into delivery. This is a basic difference between good and bad planning. In bad planning, it is routine to leave problems, challenges, and unknowns to be figured out later. That’s how the Sydney Opera House got into trouble. In that case, Jørn Utzon did eventually solve the problem, but it was too late. The budget had exploded, construction was years behind schedule, and Utzon was ousted with his reputation in tatters. In many projects, the problem is never solved.

Third, an iterative process such as Pixar’s corrects for a basic cognitive bias that psychologists call the “illusion of explanatory depth.” Do you know how a bicycle works? Most people are sure they do, yet they are unable to complete a simple line drawing that shows how a bicycle works. Even when much of the bicycle is already drawn for them, they can’t do it. “People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do,” researchers concluded. For planners, the illusion of explanatory depth is obviously dangerous. But researchers also discovered that, unlike many other biases, there is a relatively easy fix: When people try and fail to explain what they mistakenly think they understand, the illusion dissolves. By requiring Pixar film directors to walk through every step from the big to the small and show exactly what they will do, Pixar’s process forces them to explain. Illusions evaporate long before production begins, which is when they would become dangerous and expensive.[24]

That brings us to the fourth reason why iterative processes work, which I touched on in chapter 1: Planning is cheap. Not in absolute terms, perhaps. The rough videos Pixar produces require a director leading a small team of writers and artists. Keeping them all working for years is a significant cost.

Exhibit 2.1: Behaviors Driving Teaming Success Speaking Up: Teaming depends on honest, direct conversation between individuals, including asking questions, seeking feedback, and discussing errors. Collaboration: Teaming requires a collaborative mindset and behaviors—both within and outside a given unit of teaming—to drive the process. Experimentation: Teaming involves a tentative, iterative approach to action that recognizes the novelty and uncertainty inherent in every interaction between individuals. Reflection: Teaming relies on the use of explicit observations, questions, and discussions of processes and outcomes. This must happen on a consistent basis that reflects the rhythm of the work, whether that calls for daily, weekly, or other project-specific timing.

My fear is that much of the antiracist literature is an iteration of the same process of maintaining and reaffirming whiteness. Little in the mainstream antiracist narrative focuses on challenging the idea of 'white people' itself. Rather, it takes the the category as an unassailable truth, with the emphasis placed instead on making white people *nicer*, through a combination of begging, demanding, cajoling, and imploring.

• Research has found that our brains don’t register much difference between physical pain and psychological pain. • An obsession and over investment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last. Whatever makes up happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow, because our biology always needs something more. • You can’t win if you don’t play. • By what standard do we measure ourselves? Our values determine the metrics by which we measure ourselves and everyone else. • Nobody else is ever responsible for your unhappiness but you. This is because you always get to choose how you see things, how you react to things, how you value things. You always get to choose the metric by which to measure your experiences • Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right”. Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong... we are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection. • Certainty is the enemy of growth. Nothing is for certain until it has already happened -and even them, it’s still debatable. • There is little that is unique or special about your problems. That’s why letting go is so liberating.

The Agile project manager plays a crucial role in ensuring the successful delivery of projects using Agile methodologies. They act as facilitators, coaches, and leaders, guiding the team through the iterative development process. Here are some key responsibilities of an Agile project manager: Orchestrating the project's lifecycle: This involves planning and breakdown of work into sprints, facilitating ceremonies like daily stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives, and ensuring the project progresses smoothly towards its goals. Promoting collaboration and communication: Agile thrives on open communication and collaboration. The project manager fosters an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas, concerns, and updates. They actively remove roadblocks and ensure everyone is aligned with the project vision and goals. Empowering the team: Agile teams are self-organizing and empowered to make decisions. The project manager provides guidance and support but avoids micromanaging. They trust the team's expertise and encourage them to take ownership of their work. Stakeholder management: The project manager acts as a bridge between the development team and stakeholders, including clients, sponsors, and other interested parties. They keep stakeholders informed of project progress, manage expectations, and address their concerns. Continuous improvement: Agile is an iterative process that emphasizes continuous improvement. The project manager actively seeks feedback from team members and stakeholders, analyzes project data, and identifies areas for improvement. They implement changes to the process and tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. Overall, the Agile project manager plays a vital role in driving successful project delivery through Agile methodologies. They wear multiple hats, acting as facilitators, coaches, leaders, and problem-solvers, ensuring the team has the resources, support, and environment they need to thrive.

The mind of an individual experiences sensations. The individual identifies certain sensations and starts to recognize iterative sequences of sensations with the property that if one of these sensations occurs the others are expected to occur also, in a specific order. Such sequences are called causal sequences. The individual will try to use his knowledge of causal sequences to obtain certain desired sensations by producing a sensation that precedes the desired sensation in a previously experienced, causal sequence. This shift from end to means is called “cunning act” by Brouwer. Certain complexes of sensations are independent of the order in time, and their dependence on the individual is small or nil. These complexes are called things, e.g. external objects, human beings. The whole of things is called the external world of the individual. The relation of the individual with other individuals (which are again sensation complexes, i.e. things) is described by identification of causal sequences, observed by the individual, of itself and of other individuals. This identification justifies the term “acts of other individuals”. It is observed by the individual that causal acts (i.e. cunning acts based on knowledge of causal sequences) of itself and other individuals are highly dependent. Hence the need for cooperative causal acts arises. This is where scientific thinking, as an economical way to deal with large groups of these causal acts, is introduced. Scientific thinking as such is based on mathematics. The genesis of mathematics takes place at the creation of two-ities. Brouwer construes the two-ity from a move of time, which is a concept defined with respect to the individual. Namely: a move of time takes place when one sensation gives way to another. Both sensations are retained in their proper order and constitute a two-ity. The individual abstracts all quality of this two-ity and uses it as the basic ingredient for iterative processes. These iterative procedures can create predeterminately or more or less freely infinite proceeding sequences of mathematical entities previously produced.

The goal isn’t efficiency, it is to make something good, or even great. We iterate 7–9 times, with friction in the process.

In a 2023 report presented to Congress, the Congressional Research Service explained: “Deepfakes are often described as forgeries created using techniques in machine learning (ML) — a subfield of AI — especially generative adversarial networks (GANs). In the GAN process, two ML systems, called neural networks, are trained in competition with each other. The first network, or the generator, is tasked with creating counterfeit data — such as photos, audio, recordings, or video footage — that replicate the properties of the original data set. The second network, or the discriminator, is tasked with identifying the counterfeit data. Based on the results of each iteration, the generator networks continue to compete — often for thousands or millions of iterations — until the generator improves its performance such that the discriminator can no longer distinguish between real and counterfeit data.

A key tenet of rapid learning involves an ongoing feedback loop. Whether through interactions with peers, guidance from instructors, or personal reflection, learners constantly evaluate their performance, enabling iterative adjustments for continuous enhancement of the learning process.

However, if there is common knowledge of rationality, you know that others will not stop at the first step, so you can continue this iterative reasoning forever – a process of reasoning that involves repetition of the same process, taking the result from one round as a starting point for the next.

Now Where Do You Find Customers? When novice entrepreneurs search for opportunities, they too often look beyond their Zone of Influence. They think the action is happening somewhere else, in some other location or industry. But seasoned entrepreneurs almost always find and create opportunities within the context of who they are, what they know, and especially who they know. In each of the examples above, the business validation process begins with potential customers in the entrepreneur’s orbit. Actual people with names. Tribes you belong to or are interested in, most of whom are already self-organized online. People you know how to reach, today. Though it’s rarely a part of their official origin stories, the biggest companies in the world—even the viral apps now worth billions—started through personal networks and real human connections. Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in a weekend by emailing friends to use it. Version 1 did well, validating it. And Microsoft started with Bill Gates building software for a guy in Albuquerque. He had a CUSTOMER FIRST. In the beginning, founders should reach out to their friends, their former colleagues, their communities. You may think your business is unique, but trust me, it’s not. Every successful business can start this way. For example, Anahita loves her dogs and wanted healthier snacks for them. She started taking her homemade organic dog treats to her local dog park. She would sell out every time. A year later she now has a store called the Barkery, a dog bakery. Before you even think about picking a business idea, make sure you have easy access to the people you want to help. An easy way to do this is to think about where you have easy access to a targeted group of people whom you really want to help—like, say, new moms in Austin, cyclists, freelance writers, and taco obsessives (like me!). CHALLENGE Top three groups. Let’s write out your top three groups to target. Who do you have easy access to that you’d be EXCITED to help? This can be your neighbors, colleagues, religious friends, golf buddies, cooking friends, etc. The better you understand your target group, the better you can speak to them. The more specifically you can speak to their problems, the better and easier you can sell (or test products). Note how this process prioritizes communication with people, through starting (taking the first iteration of your solution straight to customers) and asking (engaging them in a conversation to determine how your solution can best fix their problem). Business creation should always be a conversation! Nearly every impulse we have is to be tight with our ideas by doing more research, going off alone to build the perfect product—anything and everything to avoid the discomfort of asking for money. This is the validation shortcut. You have to learn to fight through this impulse. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it.

we can always (and only) greet our obstacles with energy with persistence with a coherent and deliberate process with iteration and resilience

Here are four examples of Lead Magnets I use: A checklist that can be used to properly perform something I explained in a video. A template for determining, say, a business’s profit margin. An advanced guide that goes further into the details of a subject of one of my videos. A unique book that provides substantial value but is offered for free. For me, it is 11 Side Hustle Ideas to Make $500/Day from Your Phone. The appropriate opt-in incentive depends on your content. Here are other types of examples: A DIY carpenter could offer plans to make a corner table. A marketing YouTuber could offer scripts of what to say on sales phone calls. A landscaping expert might offer recommendations for which kinds of grass to use around the United States. YouTuber Nick True at Mapped Out Money, who makes video tutorials that teach the best practices for using the personal budgeting software YNAB, found that he gets the highest sign-up rates when he offers a checklist that relates to the video. His followers really like having a resource that they can use to put his advice into practice. Jess Dante of Love and London runs a YouTube channel helping viewers plan their trips to London by suggesting lesser-known restaurants and stores to visit. Her superstar opt-in incentive is a free London 101 Guide with everything a first-time visitor needs to know. It’s been downloaded more than 45,000 times. Where you make your call to action will also have an impact on your success building your email list. You can make your call to action in a variety of places or ways inside your videos. One of the best ways is to give a short, relevant tease of the bonus or resource you’re offering within the YouTube video and tell people where they can learn more. CHALLENGE Create a Lead Magnet. It’s time to create your first Lead Magnet using the process we’ve just outlined above. You can use your piece of content from the previous chapter as a base or start something new. Don’t spend more than two hours on the first iteration. If you want to turn it into a big thing later on, great. But start SMALL. Go to MillionDollarWeekend.com to get Lead Magnet templates! (See what I did there?)

Many heads nodded vigorously as expected. Having worked among brilliant engineers all his career, the thought processes of his audience were a known quantity and Adan knew how to reinforce their implicit biases. Acknowledging how the old system was broken and then talking about iterating across different possible ideas until an optimal solution was identified was designed to hit all of their logical pleasure centers.

Ship and iterate. The companies that are the fastest at this process will win.

s s i o n o f R a t i o n a l S o f t w a r e C o r p o r a t i o n i s t o e n s u r e t h e s u c c e s s o f c u s t o m e r s c o n s t r u c t i n g t h e s o f t w a r e s y s t e m s t h a t t h e y d e p e n d o n . We enable our customers to achieve their business objectives by turning software into a source of competitive advantage, speeding time-to-market, reducing the risk of failure, and improving software quality. We fulfill our mission with the Rational ApproachTM, a comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development, object modeling, and an architectural approach to software reuse. • An integrated family of application construction tools that automate the Rational Approach throughout the software lifecycle. • Technical consulting services delivered by our worldwide field organization of software engineers and technical sales professionals. Our customers include businesses in the Asia/Pacific region, Europe, and North America that are leaders in leveraging semiconductor, communications, and software technologies to achieve their business objectives. We serve customers in a diverse range of industries, such as telecommunications

o n o f R a t i o n a l S o f t w a r e C o r p o r a t i o n i s t o e n s u r e t h e s u c c e s s o f c u s t o m e r s c o n s t r u c t i n g t h e s o f t w a r e s y s t e m s t h a t t h e y d e p e n d o n . We enable our customers to achieve their business objectives by turning software into a source of competitive advantage, speeding time-to-market, reducing the risk of failure, and improving software quality. We fulfill our mission with the Rational ApproachTM, a comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development, object modeling, and an architectural approach to software reuse. • An integrated family of application construction tools that automate the Rational Approach throughout the software lifecycle. • Technical consulting services delivered by our worldwide field organization of software engineers and technical sales professionals. Our customers include businesses in the Asia/Pacific region, Europe, and North America that are leaders in leveraging semiconductor, communications, and software technologies to achieve their business objectives. We serve customers in a diverse range of industries, such as telecommunications, banking and financial services, manufacturing, transportation, aerospace, and defense.They construct software applications for a wide range of platforms, from microprocessors embedded in telephone switching systems to enterprisewide information systems running on company-specific intranets. Rational Software Corporation is traded on the NASDAQ system under the symbol RATL.1

The feedback cycle in business today isn’t a segmented part of the process or a period of time for interaction after which no more questions or input are allowed. Now it’s a fluid and never-ending process that involves the brand stewards — the audience — and they’re the people who feed it. Technology facilitates a fragmented process that’s hard to define and requires constant experimentation and iteration. It requires a process where it doesn’t really start and end like it used to. The needed approach from marketers today is to remove the launch mentality.

aim is to make the delivery of software from the hands of developers into production a reliable, predictable, visible, and largely automated process with well-understood, quantifiable risks. Using the approach that we describe in this book, it is possible to go from having an idea to delivering working code that implements it into production in a matter of minutes or hours, while at the same time improving the quality of the software thus delivered. The vast majority of the cost associated with delivering successful software is incurred after the first release. This is the cost of support, maintenance, adding new features, and fixing defects. This is especially true of software delivered via iterative processes, where the first release contains the minimum amount of functionality providing value to the customer. Hence the title of this book, Continuous Delivery, which is taken from the first principle of the Agile Manifesto: “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software

Creativity has to start somewhere, and we are true believers in the power of bracing, candid feedback and the iterative process—reworking, reworking, and reworking again,

Joining the world of shapes to the world of numbers in this way represented a break with the past. New geometries always begin when someone changes a fundamental rule. Suppose space can be curved instead of flat, a geometer says, and the result is a weird curved parody of Euclid that provides precisely the right framework for the general theory of relativity. Suppose space can have four dimensions, or five, or six. Suppose the number expressing dimension can be a fraction. Suppose shapes can be twisted, stretched, knotted. Or, now, suppose shapes are defined, not by solving an equation once, but by iterating it in a feedback loop. Julia, Fatou, Hubbard, Barnsley, Mandelbrot-these mathematicians changed the rules about how to make geometrical shapes. The Euclidean and Cartesian methods of turning equations into curves are familiar to anyone who has studied high school geometry or found a point on a map using two coordinates. Standard geometry takes an equation and asks for the set of numbers that satisfy it. The solutions to an equation like x^2 + y^2 = 1, then, form a shape, in this case a circle. Other simple equations produce other pictures, the ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas of conic sections or even the more complicated shapes produced by differential equations in phase space. But when a geometer iterates an equation instead of solving it, the equation becomes a process instead of a description, dynamic instead of static. When a number goes into the equation, a new number comes out; the new number goes in, and so on, points hopping from place to place. A point is plotted not when it satisfies the equation but when it produces a certain kind of behavior. One behavior might be a steady state. Another might be a convergence to a periodic repetition of states. Another might be an out-of-control race to infinity.

strategic thinking being a highly informal, iterative, and social process, there

Index design is also a largely iterative process, based on the SQL generated by application designers. However, it is possible to make a sensible start by building indexes that enforce primary key constraints and indexes on known access patterns, such as a person's name. As the application evolves and testing is performed on realistic sizes of data, certain queries will need performance improvements for which building a better index is a good solution.

Interestingly, the executives interviewed were comfortable with not having a finite task completion in the “cycle” of making strategy, because they believed that making strategy was a generative, iterative, and continuous process. Not too dissimilar from the ancient Greek notion of strategy, their

Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don't go from "wrong" to "right." Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. And when we learn something additional, we go from slightly less wrong to slightly less wrong than that, and so on. We are always in the process of approaching truth and perfection without actually ever reaching truth or perfection.

Therefore the most important function that software builders do for their clients is the iterative extraction and refinement of the product requirements. For the truth is, the clients do not know what they want. They usually do not know what questions must be answered, and they almost never have thought of the problem in the detail that must be specified. Even the simple answer—"Make the new software system work like our old manual information-processing system"—is in fact too simple. Clients never want exactly that. Complex software systems are, moreover, things that act, that move, that work. The dynamics of that action are hard to imagine. So in planning any software activity, it is necessary to allow for an extensive iteration between the client and the designer as part of the system definition.

While inexact models may mislead, attempting to allow for every contingency a priori is impractical. Thus models must be built by an iterative feedback process in which an initial parsimonious model may be modified when diagnostic checks applied to residuals indicate the need.

Figure 1-9. Four principles. To serve memory and use, I’ve arranged these principles and practices into a mnemonic –STAR FINDER. In astronomy, a “star finder” or planisphere is a map of the night sky used for learning to identify stars and constellations. In this book, it’s a guide for finding goals, finding paths, and finding your way. First, we can get better at planning by making planning more social, tangible, agile, and reflective. At each step in the design of paths and goals, ask how these four principles might help. Social. Plan with people early and often. Engage family, friends, colleagues, customers, stakeholders, and mentors in the process. When we plan together, it’s easier to get started. Also, diversity grows empathy, sharing creates buy-in, and both expand options. Tangible. Get ideas out of your head. Sketches and prototypes let us see, hear, taste, smell, touch, share, and change what we think. When we render our mental models to distributed cognition and iterative design, we realise an intelligence greater than ourselves. Agile. Plan to improvise. Clarify the extent to which the goal, path, and process are fixed or flexible. Be aware of feedback and options. Know both the plan and change must happen. Embrace adventure. Reflective. Question paths, goals, and beliefs. Start and finish with a beginner’s mind. Try experiments to test hypotheses and metrics to spot errors. Use experience and metacognition to grow wisdom.

Recognize that getting a Hedgehog Concept is an inherently iterative process, not an event.

Any discrete piece of information can be represented by a set of numbers. Systems that compute can represent powerful mappings from one set of numbers to another. Moreover, any program on any computer is equivalent to a number mapping. These mappings can be thought of as statements about the properties of numbers; hence, there is a close connection between computer programs and mathematical proofs. But there are more possible mappings than possible programs; thus, there are some things that simply cannot be computed. The actual process of computing can be defined in terms of a very small number of primitive operations, with recursion and/or iteration comprising the most fundamental pieces of a computing device. Computing devices can also make statements about other computing devices. This leads to a fundamental paradox that ultimately exposes the limitations not just of machine logic, but all of nature as well.

Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go from “wrong” to “right.” Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong.

Growth is an endlessly iterative process.

The organization’s mindset is reflective of “The How” — the way it goes about the iterative process of observation, reflection, decision making, and action.

Thus the creative process is less linear than recursive. How many iterations it goes through, how many loops are involved, how many insights are needed, depends on the depth and breadth of the issues dealt with.

Variable Analysis 1. Define the problem. a. What problem are you trying to solve? b. Determine the primary variable • Closely inspect the point of failure or failed output • What measurable property do you want to change? • Is it possible to define the problem using a more specific variable? 2. Describe the problem: describe the problem in detail. a. What does the problem look like? b. When did the problem start? c. How often does the problem occur? d. Where does the problem first occur? e. When where don’t you see the problem? 3. Create a variable tree: develop each layer of sub-variables by understanding how the process works a. How is the process designed to control the primary variable? b. What else determines the value of the primary variable? c. Can we combine any of the sub-variables? 4. Eliminate sub-variables from the tree a. What should the value of each sub-variable be to prevent the problem from occurring? • What is the relationship between each sub-variable and the primary variable? b. Eliminate sub-variables that do not contribute to the problem • What is the actual value of the sub-variable during failure? During non-failure? • What tests could you use to eliminate variables that are difficult to measure? • What does the pattern of failure tell you? c. Expand sub-variables that have not been eliminated (iterating step 3) d. Start with sub-variables that the pattern-of-failure suggests are most likely to contribute to the problem e. Continue to expand and eliminate sub-variables until you have found the out-of-spec variable(s) that are directly in your control • Can you explain exactly how the out-of-spec sub-variable(s) contribute(s) directly to the problem? f. If you get stuck . . . • Have you eliminated a sub-variable that you should not have? • Have you missed a sub-variable? 5. Implement the solution a. Implement the solution b. Verify the solution

fulfill our mission with the Rational ApproachTM, a comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development, object modeling, and an architectural approach to software reuse. • An integrated family of application construction tools that automate the Rational Approach throughout the software lifecycle. • Technical consulting services delivered by our worldwide field organization of software engineers and technical sales professionals. Our customers include businesses in the Asia/Pacific region, Europe, and North America that are leaders in leveraging semiconductor, communications, and software technologies to achieve their business objectives. We serve customers in a diverse range of industries, such as telecommunications, banking and financial services, manufacturing, transportation, aerospace, and defense.They construct software applications for a wide range of platforms, from microprocessors embedded in telephone switching systems to enterprisewide information systems running on company-specific intranets. Rational Software Corporation is traded on the NASDAQ system under the symbol RATL.1

A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development, object modeling, and an architectural approach to software reuse

We fulfill our mission with the Rational ApproachTM, a comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development, object modeling, and an architectural approach to software reuse

ApproachTM, a comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development

with the Rational ApproachTM, a comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development, object modeling, and an architectural

comprehensive softwareengineering solution consisting of three elements: • A configurable set of processes and techniques for the development of software, based on iterative development

Product development has become a faster, more flexible process, where radically better products don’t stand on the shoulders of giants, but on the shoulders of lots of iterations. The basis for success then, and for continual product excellence, is speed. Unfortunately, like Jonathan’s failed gate-based product development framework, most management processes in place at companies today are designed with something else in mind. They were devised over a century ago, at a time when mistakes were expensive and only the top executives had comprehensive information, and their primary objectives are lowering risk and ensuring that decisions are made only by the few executives with lots of information. In this traditional command-and-control structure, data flows up to the executives from all over the organization, and decisions subsequently flow down. This approach is designed to slow things down, and it accomplishes the task very well. Meaning that at the very moment when businesses must permanently accelerate, their architecture is working against them.

Stoic moral training depends upon the defensibility of these schematic propositions: (a) Rational deliberative power (rational agency) is a defining feature of mature human consciousness. (b) Every agent’s rational powers, whenever exercised, operate in a particular and intricate deliberative field, in Barbara Herman’s felicitous phrase, that is laden with projects, preferences, affects, and attachments. (c) Each person’s deliberative field evolves continuously. Its initial information gathering and deliberative routines are givens (as if programmed) and, together with the initial situation, yield explicable beliefs. Initial sensibilities, sensitivities, values, aims, commitments, and preferences are also givens and, together with beliefs and deliberative routines, yield normative propositions for conduct. The circumstances in which such normative propositions are acted out or abandoned (that is, the relative strength or weakness of the will) are given, and actions follow. Each process from information gathering to action then becomes information for the next process. (d) The agent’s awareness of and reflection upon these iterated processes varies. But when awareness is high, it is fair to say rational agency is a self-transformative power: over time, its reflexive, recursive operations can transform its own powers, deliberative field, and operations—hence its norms and actions. (e) Agents can thus remake their characters over time. Note, however, that no uniform, essentially human content is specified for the deliberative field

I’m not trying to be modest or self-effacing by saying this. Pixar films are not good at first, and our job is to make them so—to go, as I say, “from suck to not-suck.” This idea—that all the movies we now think of as brilliant were, at one time, terrible—is a hard concept for many to grasp. But think about how easy it would be for a movie about talking toys to feel derivative, sappy, or overtly merchandise-driven. Think about how off-putting a movie about rats preparing food could be, or how risky it must’ve seemed to start WALL-E with 39 dialogue-free minutes. We dare to attempt these stories, but we don’t get them right on the first pass. And this is as it should be. Creativity has to start somewhere, and we are true believers in the power of bracing, candid feedback and the iterative process—reworking, reworking, and reworking again, until a flawed story finds its throughline or a hollow character finds its soul.