Alright, let’s talk about this “Kate Ackerman” thing I was messing with a while back. It wasn’t a person, nope. It was this whole system, this idea I had, for trying to keep our project stuff straight. You know how it gets – total chaos sometimes.
Getting Started with the Idea
So, picture this: notes everywhere, nobody really knowing the latest status on feature tweaks, design changes getting lost in chat logs. A real headache. We were wasting time just figuring out what was decided or changed. I thought, we desperately need a better way to track this. So, I cooked up this structured approach. Called it the “Kate Ackerman” method internally. Sounded official, maybe hoped it would make people take it seriously. The core idea was simple: log decisions, log changes, keep it central.
The Actual Process – Trying to Make it Work
First step, I put together a basic template. Nothing too fancy, just key points: what changed, why, who decided, date. I thought, easy peasy.
Then, I grabbed the team, did a quick walkthrough. Showed them the template, explained the dream: a single source of truth! Everyone nodded, seemed onboard. Famous last words, right?
Here’s where things got messy:
- Actually getting folks to use the damn thing consistently? Felt like pulling teeth.
- I set up a shared folder, then tried a simple online tool. But entries were patchy. Some people wrote essays, others wrote two words.
- Lots of chasing involved. “Hey, did you log that thing from yesterday?” “Could you fill out the ‘why’ part?” Became a nag, basically.
- Some teammates got it, they saw the value. Others? Just saw it as more bureaucracy getting in the way of actual work. Deadlines are king, always.
What Happened in the End?
So, did the grand “Kate Ackerman” system revolutionize our workflow? Nah, not really. It kinda… faded. It didn’t crash and burn spectacularly, but it never became the standard practice I envisioned.
We did salvage some bits, though. The idea of being more deliberate about recording major decisions stuck around a bit better. We started doing better summaries in our meeting notes, at least. And we got a bit more disciplined about naming conventions for design files, which helped.
My big takeaway? You can design the theoretically “best” process, but if it doesn’t mesh with how people actually work day-to-day, or if it feels like too much extra effort for too little immediate gain, it’s just not gonna fly. People will find workarounds, or just ignore it. Started too big, probably. Should’ve aimed for smaller, easier wins first. Lesson learned, the hard way, as usual.
