# Progress principle The progress principle is Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer's finding that, of all the things that can happen during a workday, making progress in meaningful work is the one that most boosts people's emotions, motivation and perceptions of their work (what they call "inner work life"). Even small steps forward count. It comes from a large diary study: 238 professionals on 26 project teams in seven companies filled in daily diaries for the length of their projects, producing about 12,000 entries. Progress was the most common event on people's best days; setbacks dominated their worst days. The authors also report that setbacks weighed more heavily than progress of the same size. Why it matters: motivation follows progress more than progress follows motivation. For knowledge workers, whose output is often invisible, it pays to break work into steps small enough to finish, to make progress visible (a done list, a log, a board), and to remove the small obstacles that cause setbacks. For managers, it means the most effective thing they can do is help people make progress on work that matters. See [[Small wins]]. ## References - Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2011/05/the-power-of-small-wins - Amabile, T., & Kramer, S. (2011). The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Harvard Business Review Press (book) - https://concepts.dsebastien.net/concept/progress-principle/ ## Related - [[Small wins]] - [[Knowledge Workers]] - [[Weekly review process]] - [[Definition of Done (DoD)]] - [[Slow productivity]]