{"id":24833,"date":"2007-10-10T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2007\/10\/10\/microspeak-actionable\/"},"modified":"2007-10-10T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T10:00:00","slug":"microspeak-actionable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20071010-00\/?p=24833\/","title":{"rendered":"Microspeak: Actionable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.m-w.com\/dictionary\/actionable\"> The word <i>actionable<\/i><\/a> has as its primary meaning &#8220;providing grounds for legal action&#8221;, but in the world of management, it is the secondary meaning &#8220;capable of being acted upon&#8221; that is more common. Something that is <i>actionable<\/i> provides a specific demand for action. Although I&#8217;m not necessarily a big fan of the word itself, I definitely appreciate the value of the concept it is trying to capture.<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"border: 0pt;border-collapse: collapse\">\n<tr>\n<th>Not Actionable<\/th>\n<th>Actionable<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"baseline\">I&#8217;m thirsty.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"baseline\">Can I get a glass of water?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"baseline\">This checkbox moved.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"baseline\">Move it back.<br \/>                         Explain why you moved it.<br \/>                         Create a duplicate checkbox at the old location.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"baseline\">I&#8217;m seeing behavior&nbsp;X.<\/td>\n<td valign=\"baseline\">Help me get behavior&nbsp;Y.<br \/>                         Explain why I&#8217;m getting&nbsp;X.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p> The concept is valuable because it emphasizes the importance of clear communication, and making sure people understand what you want. Without it, meetings turn into a passive-aggressive-athon, with people saying, &#8220;Oh, sorry, I didn&#8217;t realize you wanted me to do anything about that. I thought you were just venting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> That&#8217;s also why I&#8217;m not happy with the nounification of the word <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/oldnewthing\/archive\/2004\/01\/07\/48304.aspx\"> <i>ask<\/i><\/a>. It&#8217;s not a requirement; it&#8217;s not a demand. It&#8217;s this vague <i>ask<\/i> thing. How do you prioritize an <i>ask<\/i>? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The word actionable has as its primary meaning &#8220;providing grounds for legal action&#8221;, but in the world of management, it is the secondary meaning &#8220;capable of being acted upon&#8221; that is more common. Something that is actionable provides a specific demand for action. Although I&#8217;m not necessarily a big fan of the word itself, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[105,103],"class_list":["post-24833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-microspeak","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>The word actionable has as its primary meaning &#8220;providing grounds for legal action&#8221;, but in the world of management, it is the secondary meaning &#8220;capable of being acted upon&#8221; that is more common. Something that is actionable provides a specific demand for action. Although I&#8217;m not necessarily a big fan of the word itself, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}