Documenting the Work Question, Replacing the Portfolio

Status: Open

Problem statement:
How should I document answers to the Work Question in a way that does the work a portfolio doesn't?

People commonly measure productivity by output volume over a fixed time window. They document their productivity successes in a portfolio so their output is legible to others. But output over time is the incorrect unit of measurement for productivity. Consider a person who works 100 hours a week, creates several PowerPoint decks, and forms the key strategy for company, to a person who finds a cure for cancer after devoting 40 years of her life to it. Both do valuable work yet one person's work seems to have greater impact but only in hindsight. This would not be visible in year 39 on the road to a cancer cure.

As a knowledge creator, problem engagement is the better metric to use. More specifically how one changes the problem landscape. The prompt used to emphasize that problems are the central focus is the Work Question.

The Work Question:

What problems did you solve, preempt, and set in motion this week - and what did you do to expose your proposed solutions to criticism?

Conjecture: Problem-ordered pages do the work a portfolio doesn't