Epiphanies for Everybody
The Humane Approach To Layoffs
No matter how much you want to avoid them, sometimes layoffs are inevitable. Companies struggle with cashflow for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's self-inflicted. Other times a sudden client cance... ...more
Blog
July 12, 2024•11 min read
Interview with Esther Derby
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Esther Derby, author of Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management; Agile Retrospectives (1st & second edition); and 7 Rules For Positive Productive C... ...more
Blog
June 14, 2024•1 min read
OKRs Are Management Malpractice
Lots of my contemporaries use OKRs. But once we understand systems, we can see that OKRs, both as originally defined, and as commonly used, create conflict in the system. They hurt, rather than help. ... ...more
Blog
May 22, 2024•10 min read
How to do performance reviews
Feedback is incredibly important. It’s frequently necessary to receive feedback in order to improve. So, how do we get it? Contrary to popular practice, feedback isn't something that should be given b... ...more
Blog
May 20, 2024•2 min read
Today’s assumption: the whole is equal to the sum of its parts.
Today’s assumption: the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. We're taught to think that we can understand something by breaking it into its constituent parts and understanding them. It turns out t... ...more
Blog
May 06, 2024•6 min read
Conquering Impostor Syndrome
A new way of seeing Impostor Syndrome Impostor Syndrome is one of the most common and misunderstood challenges faced by tech leaders at all levels. Whether it's a developer mentoring other developer... ...more
Blog
April 05, 2024•9 min read
Why Effective agile Increases Perception of Uncertainty
Agile ways of working often result in a feeling of uncreased uncertainty. But how close is this feeling to reality? <br><br> The most common complaint I hear from frustrated senior leaders adopting ag... ...more
Blog
March 31, 2024•9 min read
The Impact Of Setting Targets
The Impact Of Setting Targets ...more
Blog
September 02, 2023•7 min read
How To Change (part 1)
Most management is based on the idea that if something goes wrong, someone is always to blame (we use 'accountability now, but it hasn't changed much). If you want to shift your viewpoints away from... ...more
Blog
August 31, 2023•5 min read
Knowing You Have to Change Isn’t Enough
Knowing You Have to Change Isn’t Enough ...more
Blog
August 30, 2023•3 min read
Transformation Starts With You
Transformation Starts With You ...more
Blog
August 29, 2023•2 min read
Why I Coach
Before becoming a coach, a friend asked me, ‘Why do you want to coach?’ It turns out the answer is simpler than I expected. ...more
Blog
June 19, 2023•3 min read
Whole-company Big Room Planning is probably making things worse
Years of hearing about how much better things would be if you adopted agile have finally convinced you to try. After significant consideration, you choose to start Big Room Planning (BRP). It’s a deci... ...more
Blog
May 05, 2023•7 min read
Agile Story Sizing
When trying to work with stories, it’s important to keep them small. What do I mean by small? Small. Smaller than that. Even smaller. Why should stories be small? Human beings are terrible at estima... ...more
Blog
January 31, 2023•7 min read
Organisations, Cynefin, and the Theory of Constraints
Organisations, Cynefin, and the Theory of Constraints ...more
Blog
January 12, 2023•2 min read
Pull Requests and Software Development
Pull Requests and Software Development ...more
Blog
December 08, 2022•2 min read
When technical problems aren’t technical problems
When technical problems aren’t technical problems ...more
Blog
December 07, 2022•3 min read
Your workload is not an indicator of your value
Your workload is not an indicator of your value ...more
Blog
November 11, 2022•3 min read
Hiring: It’s not a funnel
There’s a recurring conversation around hiring that goes something like: “We need to hire X number of people in the next quarter, to stay on target.” “What do we need to do to get more people into the... ...more
Blog
October 29, 2022•5 min read
Tech tests are a red flag
You’re hiring a new developer. You have a team of people that are under the kosh, and you want to get them some help to make things better. How to ensure that the people you interview are at least com... ...more
Blog
March 30, 2022•3 min read
Big Room Planning is an Organisational Smell
Just like code has smells that tell you something is wrong, so do organisations. Big Room Planning (BRP) is one of the most obvious. ...more
Blog
March 19, 2022•4 min read
Keeping Up With the Business
Today’s assumption: putting a date on something increases the likelihood that it will be done by then. ...more
Blog
March 15, 2022•1 min read
Adopting Kanban
When working with a team to adopt Kanban, one of the questions that usually comes up is, “What should we put on the board?” Put everything one the board. But why? ...more
Blog
March 13, 2022•1 min read
The Expertise of Simplicity
Years ago, we hired a database expert. Things were great, but eventually the expert couldn’t keep up with the demand. I suggested we hire another and look at doing fancy things with the database. The ... ...more
Blog
March 11, 2022•1 min read
Adopting Agile in Large Organisations
Enterprises that I’ve interacted and read about often tackle Agile Transformations in the same way — they build small teams, assign them responsibilities over a part of the technical system, and then ... ...more
Blog
March 09, 2022•2 min read
Enterprise Architects
Enterprise Architects seem to fall broadly into 2 camps. Those who write code. They know how the system works and how the pieces fit together Those who do not write code. They spend much of their ti... ...more
Blog
March 08, 2022•2 min read
Dependencies
Dependencies are an organisational smell. They’re the result of business debt, or incorrect organisational design. It is entirely possible, with what we know about software development, to build massi... ...more
Blog
March 07, 2022•1 min read
Hidden Assumptions
One of the single most helpful things anybody can do for a group of people (ie a system), is help expose the underlying assumptions that drive the system. Just recently, I was advising a friend who w... ...more
Blog
March 06, 2022•1 min read
Assumption: When the Work is Done
Today’s assumption: Work is done when my team is finished with it. Work isn’t done when it leaves your hands; work is only ever done when a customer can use it. ...more
Blog
March 04, 2022•1 min read
Organisational Politics
Today’s assumption: Politics are inevitable in your organisation. The bigger the organisation, the more politics. Knowledge is power. Those with knowledge are more powerful than those without. Every ... ...more
Blog
March 02, 2022•1 min read
Broken Systems
If you see a system that consistently creates the same broken results, don’t conclude that the system is broken. The system is working exactly as designed. Unfortunately, the designers prioritised som... ...more
Blog
March 01, 2022•1 min read
Queue Length
Above 80% utilisation, work backlogs grow faster than they shrink. What does this mean for how we should think about planning work? ...more
Blog
February 19, 2022•0 min read
The Value of Estimation
“Estimates are filled with more uncertainty than confidence.” -Dominica DeGrandis Not every observed practice is a good one. ...more
Blog
February 17, 2022•0 min read
Busyness vs Productivity
Today’s assumption: Busyness = productivity “Avoid the mistake of having a goal to keep people busy all the time when the goal should be to generate value for the business.” -Dominica DeGrandis If y... ...more
Blog
February 15, 2022•2 min read
Assumption: Deadlines Help Delivery
Today’s assumption: putting a date on something increases the likelihood that it will be done by then. With very few exceptions, deadlines are arbitrary. People know this. The date is chosen before t... ...more
Blog
February 15, 2022•1 min read
Assumption: Tools and Ways of Working Are Enough
Today’s assumption: You can change your organisation by introducing new ways of doing things or new tools. Everything about your organisation is derived from the beliefs held by those with power. You... ...more
Blog
February 13, 2022•2 min read
Leadership, Agile, and Uncertainty
Software development contains uncertainty. Asking your team for certainty on any sizeable project is putting them in a bad spot — it makes clear that you don’t understand the inherent variability in k... ...more
Blog
February 11, 2022•2 min read
Digital Transformation: Where Does Change Start?
People who hire me know things aren’t working well. They see the failure of the systems to deliver the outcomes they want. Unfortunately, most of the time, they don’t recognise their role in it. ...more
Blog
February 09, 2022•1 min read
Hiring experts
When you hire somebody to solve a problem, if they are any good at their job, the first thing they’re going to do is seek to fully understand the problem. And unless you are already capable of doing t... ...more
Blog
February 03, 2022•2 min read
Which problems to fix
How do you know where to start? When figuring out which of the many problems you could tackle, how do you know which are the right ones? Low-hanging fruit? Biggest challenge? What should you do? ...more
Blog
February 01, 2022•1 min read
Hidden Conflict
If you’ve ever wondered why the problem you’re tackling hasn’t shifted, there’s almost certainly a hidden conflict. Nobody is trying to perpetuate the problem, but it’s likely that the problem exists... ...more
Blog
January 28, 2022•1 min read
Conflict resolution
There are 3 ways to resolve conflict: 1. Win-win. 2. Win-lose. 3. Compromise More often than not, it's possible to find a win-win, even when we think we have little in common. ...more
Blog
January 26, 2022•1 min read
Transforming Make-A-Wish UK
All organisations need to adapt to the ways the world is changing. Both technology and the ways we think about organisations are undergoing rapid change, and it’s speeding up. Digital Transformation i... ...more
Blog
May 09, 2018•8 min read
Building a Case for Organisational Change
Customers want to give you huge amounts of money to do something that you want to do. However, you can’t retain the people who can do it. So you have to both hire and train people to do it. In additio... ...more
Blog
September 12, 2017•15 min read
When to coach, when to agitate?
Good coaching is an almost ideal solution. It works by simple questioning, listening, and helping the coachee figure out a solution for themselves that works for them, in their given circumstances. Th... ...more
Blog
February 17, 2017•5 min read