Progress Report on Starting Tab Collection
A status update on the practice of assembling browser tabs as a recognized predecessor to the work itself.
Reporting Period: The current task, from intent to first tab.
Status: Active. No deliverable produced.
Period Summary
The subject has a task. The task requires research, tools, references, and possibly documentation. The subject opens a documentation tab, a tool tab, two reference tabs, and a tab containing a tangentially related article that will not be consulted. The browser now shows six tabs. None contain the deliverable.
Starting tab collection is considered stable once removing it would require an explicit conversation. No such conversation has been initiated.
Metrics
Tabs opened: 6. Tabs consulted: 1 briefly. Tabs that contain work product: 0. Time elapsed: 14 minutes. Time attributed to task in retrospective account: approximately 14 minutes.
Progress is being measured through activity even when the activity carefully avoids the actual deliverable. The measurement is not inaccurate. It is measuring a different thing than was stated.
Contributing Behaviors
The first accommodation for starting tab collection looks harmless and removes a little uncertainty. One tab for documentation. This is reasonable. Then a second tab for the specific function in question. Also reasonable. Then a third for the library's changelog, because the version being used may differ from the documentation. The changelog will not be opened.
The accommodation becomes teachable. A colleague beginning a similar task opens tabs before typing. Nobody told them to. The behavior transmitted without instruction because it looks like preparation, and preparation looks like diligence.
Later, ignoring starting tab collection appears reckless even though the rule was invented from habit. The recklessness is measured in tabs not opened, which looks like tabs not checked, which looks like insufficient preparation, which looks like something a more experienced person would not do.
Forecast
Work will begin. Possibly at the next milestone. Tab count is expected to increase by two to four units before that occurs.