Sounds like a company is not adequately defining what the deliverables are.
Task: Walk to the shops & buy some milk.
Deliverables:
1. Video of walking to the shops (including capturing the newspaper for that day at the local shop)
2. Reciept from local store for milk.
3. Physical bottle of Milk.
1. A whitish liquid containing proteins, fats, lactose, and various vitamins and minerals that is produced by the mammary glands of all mature female mammals after they have given birth and serves as nourishment for their young.
2. The milk of cows, goats, or other animals, used as food by humans.
3. Any of various potable liquids resembling milk, such as coconut milk or soymilk.
And when on the receiving end of the deliverables list, it's always a good idea to make sure they are actually deliverable.
There's nothing worse than a task where you can deliver one item and then have to rely on someone else to be able to deliver a second. Was once in a role where performance was judged on closing tasks; getting the burn-down chart to 0, and also having it nicely stepped. Was given a good tip to make sure each task had one deliverable and where possible—be completed independent of any other task.
Well, I think in this example someone else wrote down “buy milk”. Of course I would generally know what that’s likely to mean, and not buy the ridiculous thing. But someone from a culture that’s not used to using milk could easily get confused and buy the wrong thing, to further the example. I guess my point was that it’s never possible to completely unambiguously define when a task is done without assuming some amount of shared knowledge with the person completing the task that lets them figure out what you meant and fill in any gaps
Task: Walk to the shops & buy some milk.
Deliverables: 1. Video of walking to the shops (including capturing the newspaper for that day at the local shop) 2. Reciept from local store for milk. 3. Physical bottle of Milk.