RE: Features of a well-written procedure - 7-step rule

["Thomas Quine" <quinet -at- home -dot- com>]

Interestingly, I work with a man who was a professional blackjack dealer for
three years.
Training for casino workers is very intense, and the casinos have tried
every possible configuration to get greater productivity out of the dealers.
Obviously, the more gamblers per dealer, the more money comes in per hour,
the greater the profit rate.
Annual refresher training ends with a test, in which the dealer spends four
hours dealing to seven other professional dealers, who do everything in
their power to confuse the dealer, and use every trick the casinos have
uncovered to cheat.
The casinos have learned through experimentation that the most players they
can put in front of a dealer is seven. After that number, the dealer starts
to lose track of which cards have been played, who did what, etc.
I find that if I am working through a longer procedure, I start to lose my
place, to lose track of where I am on the screen vs. the paper, what I did
last and whether I have already entered that entry, etc.
Of course I have written procedures longer than seven steps, but as much as
possible I try to keep it in that zone. It's usually fairly easy to break a
longer procedure into two. If it isn't, you should probably bring this to
the attention of the developer, because the complication is coming from
them...
- Thom
www.documen.com


Subject:	RE: Features of a well-written procedure

Mike Stockman said:
>> The justification for the five-to-seven rule
has never made sense to me, because it seems based on research about
memorization, which isn't relevant. Perhaps others who know the research
better will chime in...

Donn Le Vie wrote:

I used to write the Home-Based Business column for the Austin Business
Journal and I researched the use of the "Rule of Seven" quite a bit for one
issue.

The five-to-seven rule is a valid principle used in documentation, sales,
and marketing. The Rule of Seven" has been taught in business schools for
years. The average prospect needs to be exposed to a sales message at least
7 times before they will become a motivated buyer. One of the earliest
applications was first observed by Bell Telephone when researching the
optimum number of digits for phone  numbers to be easily memorized (hence,
recall, which seems to me to be especially relevant to procedures). Thus,
your seven-digit phone number (before the need for area codes).

The Rule of Seven is also observed in ancient literature for the exact same
reason: easy recall for the oral traditions.

1. The Seven Wonders of the World (described first in the great library at
Alexandria)
2. The Seven Seas (in pre-15th century, "seven" also meant "many" but those
seas where the Red, Adriatic, Mediterranean, Persian, Black, Caspian, and
Indian Ocean)
3. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
4. The Seven Voyages of Sinbad
5. The seven notes of the music scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti...8 if you want
to count the octave, do)

These are just a few examples. I once presented a workshop on using the Rule
of Seven for marketing. Someone in the audience asked about "the 10
commandments." Good question. I asked everyone to write down the 10
commandments as they remembered them. Then, I took an unscientific poll
(raising hands) by asking "how many did you get?" The average
was...........seven.

Donn Le Vie


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