Work vs. Progress

full article by scottberkun.com: "It’s easy to tell when someone is working, but how can you tell when they’re making progress? Simple work, like mowing a lawn or washing a car has transparent progress: as each small unit of work is completed it’s visible to everyone. But with complex work, building software, running a business, writing a novel, it is harder to identify true progress. Some of the work will require thinking and exploration which may go on for hours or days before there are visible results. Other work may involve so many different sub-tasks or conversations with others that there's no way to know how efficiently the work is being done, or if the effort expended is contributing to progressing the project. Complex work, or work with large numbers of people, always makes it harder to separate work from progress."