Paper Crane

If you've read our earlier blogs on processes you'll realise that despite it's many pros, the one con is that since you're more efficient you go through the quantum of work at a faster pace. This means that by the time you come to the end of the week, there's not as much work left and that's exactly what happened today. Nayana and I sat for a bit wondering - what now? I picked up a book and decided to read, so did she. Once I got done with the chapter I was reading the lack of a bookmark became evident. A small sheet of tracing paper was lying around the and with all the work sorted out I decided an origami paper crane would be nice to hold my place in the book.

I cut the piece into an exact square (ok maybe not as exact as I would've liked it) and started folding. The fact that I didn't have a perfect square only got compounded with every fold. In the end I had my crane, just not perfect, slightly imbalanced with wings that were just slightly disproportionate. This is a very similar situation to what could happen in our profession. If we're not thorough with our work, striving for perfection in every process from beginning to end, no matter how hard you try towards the end the finished product will always be less than perfect. This took me back to one of the estimation discussions we had with Sai the other day. Imagine you're designing a toilet. You'll start with the basic positioning, move on to the plumbing, aligning the tiles, making sure that as a whole it is both functional and aesthetic. But while doing the tiling drawing we often neglect the grout between the tiles. Seems insignificant but it compounds. What you end up on site with is weird cut tiles - which is certainly unappealing. The seemingly perfect toilet on paper becomes less than that on site. Just like the paper crane, only if we're precise at every stage, accounting for the smallest of details, can we get a finished product that is perfect...

-Mannat