Module 2 · Check 2.3

Check: general or specific enough for this audience?

Five Harbourline moments. Choose an answer to see straight away whether it is right, and why.

Lesson 3 of 3About 5 minutes

Each scenario is a real moment at Harbourline. Judge whether the words suit the people receiving them.

Question 1

Tomasz Kowalski tells a Kraków integration engineer he has built releases with for three years: “Deploy the fix the usual way.” How would you judge the instruction?

Two people who already share the detail can use the short phrase safely; spelling it out would waste both their time.

Question 2

Before a Monday release, the Salesforce team (Kasia Wójcik is its Scrum Master) emails the Pune Service Desk: “Minor changes to the Northlight screens, nothing major.” How would you judge the message?

“Minor” means one thing to the people who built the change and something quite different to the analysts who will take the calls.

Question 3

At a Pune shift change, the outgoing analyst says: “The queue is normal and Northlight is quiet. One callback is promised to a Northlight manager at 9am; I’ve passed it to the incoming lead, who will call.” How would you judge the handover?

The handover gets specific only on the callback, one of the three items the team agreed matter, and leaves the rest general.

Question 4

After a quarterly review, Niamh Kearney’s executive team plans to send all four offices a 30-page guide setting out how every team must run its weekly meetings. How would you judge the plan?

Detail that belongs to the people doing the work goes out of date quickly and buries the few points that genuinely need agreement.

Question 5

In Martin Hale’s Monday cross-office meeting, “at risk” means build behind plan to Kraków, users affected to Pune and an unhappy client to Hartford. The same confusion comes up every week. What is the best move?

Specificity is an investment made once: settle the meaning where it is genuinely read differently, then the short word works again.

You have finished Module 2

Next is Module 3, the Continuum of Collaboration: six stages of working together, how to read the mix across an organisation, and how to tell C5 from C6 by evidence rather than belief.

Your progress

Back: Lesson 2.2a (team leaders)

Back: Lesson 2.2b (senior leaders)

Next: Module 3

Course contents · This is the open version of the course. Your notes, progress and check scores are saved on this device, and in your account when you are signed in.