Technology: 01
Path: Technologies: Henosis: Automata: Gear
Saturday, 23 September 2017
Gear
How we continuously upgrade processes within Slack.
At Invisible, we do your work for you, so you can do your real work.
You delegate a task to us, we execute it. Additionally, we also write down instructions on how to do it again next time. We call these instructions a Process Book.
Much like software, Processes are never complete — they get improved at every execution. It means the quality of our work only goes up, and stays there.
The first stage of a newly created Process is that of a Taskbook — a message-like set of instructions.
We greatly believe in the power of having a single interface, so all Invisible-related work is executed inside Slack. No context switching, ever.
The personal channel
Each Agent has their own Personal Building Channel—mine would be #bld-gunar. This is a scratchpad channel we use to write and edit drafts.
Creating a draft of a Taskbook is as simple as sending a message. If the message fits our Taskbook standards, Gear will add the white check mark emoji (✅).
By clicking the check mark the Agent is saying “commit and push” — Git-speak for “this Taskbook is ready”.
The collaborative channel
How can I execute and improve a Taskbook written by others?
Gear posts newly created Taskbooks to #taskbooks, and copy is stored in our databases as well.
Once a Taskbook is in #taskbooks, any Agent can click on the pencil emoji (✏)️ to send it back to the Personal Building Channel for improvements.
Conclusion
We were eager to automate the creation and editing of Processes. However, we decided on manual execution first. This saved us hundreds of engineering hours! By first allowing the problem to reveal itself to us, we were able to code precisely what we needed — and nothing else.
Gear turned out to be a small but effective tool, aiding the goal of delivering consistent high-quality work.
But this is just the beginning! A Process can be so much more than a few lines of text. A fully implemented Process is machine-readable, written in the Playbook Language, and allows for all sorts of automation. Stay tuned.
