Everyday We Re-Write the Book

Today is day 3 of the World Bank Book Sprint on Open Contracting. Yesterday we had a book but there were obvious structural issues and a disharmony in the framework so we essentially re-wrote the book. The crew all agreed to start earlier than usual and forgo their night off (tonight) so that they could rework the approach and come up with another structure for the core of the content.

In essence, the group has written a second complete redraft and will rework this over the remaining two days. It means long hours but there is a good amount of discussion and engagement with the topic.

While its tiring to create ideas and content in such an intense manner the conversations become richer as the Book Sprint progresses and the collaborations also become far more nuanced and complex as we progress into the sprint. Often after the first day it is difficult for an ‘outsider’ to enter the process since the language and notation systems are sophisticated and represent many hours of conceptual engagement. After the third day it is almost unimaginable to consider how someone that wasn’t present at the beginning of the process could understand the path that the group has traversed or enter into the conversations.

Update day 4: Snakes and Tornados. Day four of the Open Contracting Book Sprint. Everyone is working hard on finishing their chapters and we will move shortly onto re-aligning structure and proofing. Last night we had a snake come visit the sprint room and today there are tornado warnings! Still, it doesn’t stop us from working.

On the left is the group working on the ‘how to do it’ section, on the right is the Booktype interface representing the same thing.