Context
The philosophy of endeavors draws from multiple traditions of organized work. These traditions differ in how much empirical grounding they have in high-stakes, non-hierarchical coordination — and in how accessible their language is to likely readers.
Decision
Derivation order (most to least foundational)
The intellectual content of the endeavor philosophy should be derived from these sources in this priority order:
- TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care)
- Insurgent military practice
- Emergent disaster response
- Western military practice
- Western medicine
- FOSS (Free/Open Source Software)
- American business
The most foundational sources (TCCC, insurgent practice, disaster response) are the ones with the deepest empirical grounding in coordination under uncertainty without guaranteed hierarchy.
Presentation order (roughly reversed)
The language and framing should be presented in approximately the reverse order — starting with the most accessible vocabulary (business/FOSS) and only introducing military/medical/disaster response concepts when the reader has enough context to see why they matter.
The dual
This is another instance of the structuration-interface dual:
- Derivation is internal structuration — how the philosophy organizes itself, on its own terms, from the most empirically grounded sources.
- Presentation is external interface — how the philosophy meets the reader, using the vocabulary they already have.
The dual inverts the ordering: work through the set in one direction (derivation: military → medical → disaster → FOSS → business), present in the backward direction (presentation: business → FOSS → disaster → medical → military). The internal order serves truth; the external order serves comprehension.
Consequences
- When writing the endeavor philosophy, research and derive from TCCC and insurgent practice FIRST, even if those sources won’t appear prominently in the final text.
- When presenting concepts (in specs, in texts, in the published site), lead with FOSS/business language and introduce military/medical grounding progressively.
- The semiotic-project-management spec already does this partially: it cites Shape Up, Scrum, Kanban, ADRs (FOSS/business) prominently while the anarchic governance and relational grounding (which draw on more foundational sources) appear later.
- This ordering should be made consistent across the endeavor philosophy — not ad hoc.
Rationale
The sources with the most to teach about non-hierarchical coordination under uncertainty are NOT the software/business ones. They are the military medical (TCCC), insurgent, and disaster response traditions — where coordination happens under extreme pressure, without reliable hierarchy, and with life-or-death stakes.
But those sources use vocabulary and frameworks that are unfamiliar to most readers of software specifications. Leading with them creates a comprehension barrier. Leading with FOSS/business vocabulary and then revealing the deeper sources is more effective pedagogy.
The cost: readers may initially think this is “just another agile methodology.” The benefit: by the time they encounter the military/medical grounding, they have enough context to understand why it matters.