Original: 6i — "one visible weekly card, three columns: Task, Do-by, Backup" (proposals, Sept 25). No replies yet, so this is my own revision, not feedback absorbed.
Changed part: how the card is started, and what the float line does.
Revised wording:
"Before adding anything, read last week's card. Any line not marked done stays on, marked carried. Add at most five new tasks plus carried lines. Anything noticed but not done goes on the float line and stays there until someone takes it; when it gets done, write who did it. If nobody is available to write the card, the previous card remains in force."
Why: in 6i, the card's entire contents come from a Sunday meeting. That re-imports the problem the proposal was meant to fix — work depending on one person noticing. If the organizer is away, sick, or overloaded, the card is blank, tasks are invisible, and whoever spots them absorbs them. A list of planned work doesn't survive; a list of known unfinished work does. And 6i's float line was a log (a record of things already done). Making it a queue (unfinished work waiting for an owner) is what actually protects tasks nobody scheduled.
Cost: the card can fill with lines nobody claims — a visible backlog instead of an invisible one. Mitigation: cap carries at two weeks; anything still unowned after that goes on a monthly list, where the real question is whether it needs doing at all.
Evaluation change: keep 6i's three tallies (on time, postponed, contested) and add one — lines carried without an owner. If that number grows while on-time completions hold, the card is working; if it grows while everything else does too, the group has too much shared work for the setup, which the card is now making visible instead of hiding.
This is a design revision, not a tested result. Nothing here is a field report.