How to place a quality instructions in DDM Group

Background

While the invisible costs of a company often include communication, error correction, and search efforts, the establishment of clear and high‑quality instructions represents the first and most effective step toward reducing these expenses. By ensuring that guidance is precise and accessible, organizations can minimize misunderstandings, prevent costly mistakes, and streamline workflows, ultimately creating a more efficient and cost‑effective environment.

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Definition of a Quality Instructions

Clear Direction

As the saying goes, doing the right thing is more important than merely doing the thing right. Clear direction in instructions is essential because it empowers staff to make decisions when challenges arise. For instance, if you tell a subordinate to reach the railway station by 10:00 a.m. and he departs at 9:00 a.m. but encounters heavy traffic, he may simply report that he cannot make it on time. However, if you emphasize that arriving by 10:00 a.m. is critical because it secures a USD $1,000,000 deal for the company, he will explore every possible solution to overcome obstacles and ensure success.

Relevance

Quality instructions must be relevant, focusing only on the essential details that enable effective action. In the earlier scenario, the subordinate only needs to know the time (10:00), the venue (railway station), and the objective (securing USD $1,000,000 for the company). Providing more than this—such as explaining whether 10:00 refers to Hong Kong or UK time, or giving the exact longitude and latitude of the station—adds unnecessary complexity. Excessive information can overwhelm staff, slow down decision‑making, and distract them from the true objective. Relevance ensures clarity, efficiency, and sharper focus on outcomes that matter.

Faciliating Decision Making

Continuing or Railway example, to ensure the subordinate arrives at the railway station on time, the manager should provide instructions that balance clarity with relevance. Beyond stating the time (10:00 a.m.), venue (railway station), and objective (securing the USD $1,000,000 deal), the manager can add practical details that directly support decision making. For example,

• Sharing the exact address of the station prevents confusion
• Current weather conditions helps the subordinate prepare appropriately.
• Information about traffic updates
• Recommended transportation options, including estimated costs, allows him to choose the most efficient route.
• Contingency plan—such as switching to the metro if roads are congested—ensures he can adapt quickly to unexpected challenges.

By providing only the information that aids judgment and action, the manager empowers the subordinate to make smart, timely decisions without being overwhelmed. Even though the subordinate is expected to gather the information by himself , the instruction is still good to tell him what piece of information he should consider.

Question and Answer Key-Value Pair

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers – Voltaire

While we spend much of our time searching for answers each day, we often forget to connect those answers back to the original question. In the railway example, if a subordinate spends an hour calculating every possible probability of arriving at the station on time, he might produce a formula worthy of a Nobel Prize. Yet he could still fail the task because he overlooked the actual question—the instruction—to arrive at the railway station by 10:00 a.m. This illustrates that quality instructions must always make clear what question or objective the executor is working toward.

Executable and Measurable

Quality instructions must be executable, meaning they can be acted upon directly without requiring excessive interpretation or guesswork. An instruction that is executable provides clear steps, resources, and boundaries so the executor knows exactly what to do. At the same time, instructions must be measurable, allowing performance to be assessed against defined standards or outcomes. For example, telling a subordinate to “arrive at the railway station by 10:00 a.m. to secure the USD $1,000,000 deal” is both executable (the action is clear) and measurable (success is determined by whether he arrives on time and achieves the objective). Together, executability and measurability ensure accountability, efficiency, and alignment with organizational goals.

Reusable

Reusable instruction refers to guidance that can be applied again in future situations that are the same or similar, or when solving comparable problems. In the railway station example, asking a subordinate to arrive at a destination involves recurring properties such as arrival time, venue, objective, weather conditions, traffic conditions, contingency plans, and travel costs. While the specific values may change—for instance, the exact time might be 10:00 a.m. today but different tomorrow—the underlying keys (remember the Key-Value Pair stated in previous paragraph?) , such as the requirement to arrive at a venue by a certain time, remain constant. These keys make the instruction reusable, ensuring consistency and efficiency across similar scenarios.

Reusable

How the final benchmark of quality instruction lies in evaluating whether the output meets the intended standard. This is often the most challenging step, especially when the instruction involves subjective criteria that are difficult to quantify. For example, if an instructor says, “Design a beautiful package box for a shoe,” the term beautiful is subjective and open to interpretation. To make the evaluation more objective, measurable criteria must be introduced. One effective approach is to ask a group of end‑consumers—say, 10 people—to rate the design. By gathering consumer feedback, the output becomes quantifiable, and success is judged not by personal opinion but by the target audience’s response. This ensures that even subjective instructions can be transformed into objective, actionable benchmarks, leading to more reliable and consistent outcomes.o place a

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How to place quality order in DDM Group

Tools to use in DDM Group for placing order.

Teamwork.com

While Teamwork.com is a project management system that addresses most communication challenges during a project, the one element that cannot be fully standardized is the content of the instruction itself. Rewriting instructions repeatedly for the same situation is inefficient and time‑consuming, which is why creating instruction templates is a practical way to achieve consistency.

However, even though the built‑in Task List Template function is designed to solve this issue, it still encounters what can be described as the DevOps problem. In the context of instructions, the DevOps problem arises because the external environment is constantly changing, and instructions must adapt accordingly. Yet the Task List Template introduces new complications, such as versioning, variations, and ordering conflicts, all of which become apparent when instructions are managed in a DevOps‑style workflow.

For example, if I create a Task List Template instructing a teammate to choose a car brand, should I include more than 100 brand options? And if new brands emerge, must I continually update the list? Clearly, it is not feasible to keep such templates perpetually up to date.

This is precisely why bGraph was invented—to solve the limitations of static templates and provide a more dynamic, adaptable solution for managing instructions in ever‑changing environments.

bGraph

bGraph is a in-house invented system which is a system (i.e. System^3) used to build a system (System^2) to build a system (system^1).

For example:

1. System^1 = The Eshop built for a brand (e.g. nike.com)
2. System^2 = The System for building an Eshop Template (e.g. shopify.com)
3. System^3 = The System for building any Template of any types of System.

Think about the concept of Country. While there is more than 200 countries, in the world, and due to the fact that the concept Country can easily found in many different types of system (e.g. CRM / ERP / Invoicing system). Imagine how time consuming it will be if every time when you build a system , you have to find out the list of Countries? Even worse, if there is a new coutry show up in the world, how can you update all the list of the system in System^2 and System^1 if you have 100+ systems?

The invent of System^3 is to create a single source of truth – a centered knowledge repositary to store all the business objects , resuable concepts in one place.

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Basic Concepts in bGraph

The fondation of bGraph, as self-explained in the name, is the Graph theory.

bGraph is simply consisted of 2 atomic concepts : Node and Edge

Let’s start with some example.

1. Address Bar (Node) CAN_BE_FOUND (Edge) in the Browser (Node)
2. Male (Node) IS_INSTANCE (Edge) of Gender (Node).
3. SEO (Node) IS_SOLUTION of Google Search Engine Result Page Ranking (Node).

Node is simply the Object (or Subject) in a sentence, while Edge is the relationship between these 2 objects.

By using this simple merchanism , we can link up all the knowledge that we have acquired. We called that Knowledge Graph.

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How to apply the bGraph in writing an instruction

Define the Edge

There are around 20 built-in Edge inside bGraph. This edge describes most of the relationships that we can find between 2 Nodes. Below are some of the example of the built-in Edge

• IS_INSTANCE_OF
• IS_SUBSET_OF
• IS_EQUAL_TO
• IS_CAUSE_OF
• CAN_BE_FOUND_IN

Define the Node

Defining the Node is equal to tokenizing the every single concepts in our perception into a fine-grained level.

For example ,

1. Rain IS_COMPOSED_OF Water
2. Water IS_COMPOSED_OF H
3. Water IS_COMPOSED_OF O of 2 Unit

Another example in Business World

1. CRM IS_COMPOSED_OF Lead Module
2. Gender IS_PROPERTY_OF Lead Module
3. Male IS_INSTACNE_OF Gender
4. Female IS_INSTANCE_OF Gender
5. F IS_EQUAL_TO Female

By Tokenizing (i.e. break down) all the perception in to the atomic level Node, we can chain up all the knowledge to form a knowledge graph which can be re-used.

On top of the CRM example above, if in another system , for example an human resource management system, there is another chain of graph as below:

1. Gender IS_PROPERTY of Candidate
2. Female IS_INSTANCE_OF Gender
3. F IS_EQUAL_TO Female

Obviously Gender , Female and F are the concepts overlapped with the CRM system. In this case, we don’t need to re-write all the relationships and simply adding the Candidate statement (i.e. Statement#6 in below) in the existing CRM knowledge graph as below:

1. CRM IS_COMPOSED_OF Lead Module
2. Gender IS_PROPERTY_OF Lead Module
3. Male IS_INSTACNE_OF Gender
4. Female IS_INSTANCE_OF Gender
5. F IS_EQUAL_TO Female
6. Gender IS_PROPERTY of Candidate

While there may be 100 systems inside the Knowledge Graph, we should add some information to classify the Node-Edge Statement. Therefore , allow me to introduce the concept Namespace and Tag.

Namespace

1. CRM (CRM) IS_COMPOSED_OF Lead Module (CRM)
2. Gender (CRM, HRM) IS_PROPERTY_OF Lead Module (CRM, HRM)
3. Male (CRM, HRM) IS_INSTACNE_OF Gender (CRM, HRM)
4. Female (CRM, HRM) IS_INSTANCE_OF Gender (CRM, HRM)
5. F (CRM, HRM) IS_EQUAL_TO Female (CRM, HRM)
6. Gender (CRM, HRM) IS_PROPERTY of Candidate (HRM)

So in human english, Namespace is simply answer the question of under what context

For example , under context of CRM (i.e. Namespace = CRM), the Female IS_INSTANCE_OF Gender

Another example, under context of CRM , Gender IS_PROPERTY of Lead Module, and under context of HRM , Gender IS_PROPERTY of Candidate.

Tags

Tags are types of classification method that are cross-namespace. It is always as the “Leaf” inside the Graph, which means that this Node is tokenized into an atomic level which cannot be further broken down.

For example, if there are following Node-Edge statements as below:

1. Under Namespace WordPress
   • WordPress IS_APPLICABLE_TO Free-Trial
   • WordPress IS_APPLICABLE_TO Open-Source
   • WordPress IS_INSTANCE OF CMS
2. Under Namespace Shopify
   • Shopify IS_APPLICABLE_TO Free-Trial
   • WordPress IS_APPLICABLE_TO Proprietary
   • Shopify IS_INSTANCE OF CMS

While Free-Tral can be an Node, if it is self-explain and no need futher break down (unlike Gender which can be broken down to Male and Female) , then it can be regarded as the Tag , making it become this :

1. Under Namespace WordPress
   • WordPress IS_INSTANCE OF CMS (Free Trial , Open Source)
2. Under Namespace Shopify
   • Shopify IS_INSTANCE OF CMS (Free Trial ,Proprietary)

Because Free Trial , Open Source and Proprietary are cross-namespace concepts, and are fine-grained which are self-explained, they can be used as a Tag.

In terms of daily operation, it is much faster for the user to “Tag” a concept instead of creating the Node-Edge relationship record inside the bGraph.

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Applying Node , Edge , Namespace and Tag in writing instructions.

When to execute an instruction

In a well systemized business, the instruction will only be placed after the client is paid for a servcie or production. In this sense, the trigger of an instruction will be an SKU# (e.g. #8202100). Therefore, using the SKU# as the Tag to classify all the Node which is related to a specific SKU# will be a time-saver.

What to execute in an instruction

in bGraph , it is already some built-in Node which is for placing an instruction in Teamwork.com , which the Nodes are:

1. TMW Background
2. TMW Objective
3. TMW Prerequisite
4. TMW Specification
5. TMW Input
6. TMW Output
7. TMW Output Exclusion

Those Nodes are inline with the instruction mechanism we have defined in our instruction protocol.

For example, when the client bought from us a Google Ads Placmenet search. We are expected to find the Node-Edge statement inside the bGraph as below:

1. TMW Objective IS_EQUAL to Create Google Ads Search Campaign (#8303100)
2. Google Ads Account (Admin) Access Rights IS_INSTANCE of TMW Prerequisite (#8206200, #8303100)
3. Sign In Email Address IS_PROPERTY_OF Google Ads Account (Admin) Access Rights
4. Google Ads Account (Admin) Access Rights IS_INSTANCE of TMW Input (#8206200, #8303100)
5. Google Ads Search Campaign ID IS_INSTANCE of TMW Output (#8303100)

By creating the Node-Edge statements in this way, all the components of an instructions can be resuable in any other SKU#. For example, the Google Ads Account (Admin) Access Rights (#8206200) can be used in many other services. We don’t need to define the Google Ads Account (Admin) Access Rights again and again for each task instructions.

Moreover, the Node Sign In Email Address is the variable that will be dependent to different client or different project. While the Key (remember Key-Value Pair) = Sign In Email Address, the Value will be vary for different client and different project. For example

1. Under Namespace = DDM
   • Sign In Email Address = [email protected] (#8303100)
2. Under Namespace = ABC Company
   • Sign In Email Address = [email protected] (#8303100)

So all we need to do is to add the Sign in Email Address when a new client is on board, instead of defining every instruction Node-Edge statement from scratch.

Also , whenever we have want to add/remove any TMW Input, we simply just create/delete a Node-Edge statement, without deleting the Node itself (which can be for future use).

in bGraph , there is (or will be ) an tool named Teamwork Task Instruction Generator which will help to generate the content of Teamwork task instruction which are ready to copy and paste into the interface of Teamwork.

Where to execute in an instruction

One of the biggest time consuming step is to tell the executor where to press the button.

Nowsaday , lots of the executable workload in many business are dependent on “Clicking Button / Link” in front of the screen.

Therefore, providing the Click Path inside the instruction which can help the executor to co-ordinate where they should click based on the trigger (i.e. the SKU#)

Imagine , how many times you have to tell inside the instructions the “Settings” button inside different web application under different SKU# in different projects for different Clients?

It will be a waste of time if we write the click-path again and again and again. And therefore, the most smartest (and also the most stupid) way to co-ordinate the Click Path, is to draw a Screen Map – i.e. record every single Human Visible Text , Human Non-Visible Text and Clickable item (e.g. button / URL) as the Node inside bGraph. For Example

1. Continue IS_NEXT_STEP of Settings
2. Security IS_NEXT_STEP of Settings
3. 2FA IS_NEXT_STEP of Security

The good news is – you only need to do once for each web application and then it can be reused again and again in different SKU# and Client which related to the same web application.

The bad news is – its a very time-consuming step , and the interface of any web application is changing from time to time. Its a big challenge to keep the Click Path Screen Map up-to-date.

Due to the fact that , by drawing the Click Path Screen Map, the burden of writing an instruction can be split around to different teammates, which means can save the time of the instructors who place the instruction. It’s still worth to do it.

How to place the instruction

1. Generate the Instruction’s Key (of Key-Value Pair) By using the Teamwork Task Instruction Generator, we can simply input the SKU# , and then all the attributes of a SKU (e.g. TMW Background, TMW Objectives) will be generated in order and output as a hierarhical plain text which can be ready for copy and paste to the interface of Teamwork.com
2. Find out the Lists of Value (of Key-Value Pair) of each Key which is ready for choose from bGraph.

For example, if one of the TMW Input is the Brand Font Family. Instead of pasting all Font Family into the Task instruction for the instructors to choose, the instructors can instead go to the bGraph, and search for the Instance of Font Family, so that all the instance of Font Family will be come out as a list for choosing. By using this way, tones of times are saved on maintaing and updating the option value lists of all concepts.

3. Place the Instruction content (generated by Teamwork Task Instruction Generator) and selected option value (search from bGraph) to Teamwork.com’s Task Description Field.

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