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The Pirates of the Caribbean series has always been one of my favorites and one of the biggest reasons is of course: Captain Jack Sparrow. He may not be the first example that comes to mind as far as effective leaders and even though he is often operating with incomplete information and questionable resources, people repeatedly choose to follow him. While I recognize that this is of course a…
The following phrase is one of my favorite mental models for how I approach discussions, decisions, and problem-solving:“And then what happens?”At first glance, it seems almost too basic to be powerful. In practice, however, it does something most teams struggle with: forces clarity. We’ve all been in high-level conversations that feel productive:“We’ll automate this…
My wife and I have a recurring problem. It goes like this:I say, “I’m ready to go.” She says, “Okay, one second.”Instead of waiting, I start another small task. Unload the dishwasher. Send an email. Tidy up the counter.A minute later she says, “Ready!”, but now I’m mid-task.So she starts something while waiting for me.Then I finish and say,…
It's easy to understand why it's still tempting to present a project's progress in phases like these:Requirements: 100%Development: 80%Testing: 30%Deployment: 0%On paper, the project looks nearly finished. In reality, nothing usable has been delivered.This is the trap of “% complete” reporting. It creates the illusion of progress without telling us the one thing that matters: when will…
"Every system is perfectly designed to get the result that it does." – W. Edwards Deming Why Systems Thinking MattersMost problems we face at work and in life aren’t isolated. They’re the result of many interconnected parts interacting over time. Yet we often try to solve them with quick fixes that treat symptoms instead of root causes.Systems thinking is a way of seeing the…
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is, at its core, a story about building something unprecedented: the atomic bomb. While the ethical implications of the Manhattan Project are enormous (and should never be overlooked), the film also provides useful lessons in leadership, strategy, and execution that can still be applied today.Here are some product management principles that stood out to me…
In many teams I’ve worked with, when a challenge pops up there's often a rush to adopt specific tools, frameworks, or processes in hopes of improving productivity or alignment. This can be new apps for tracking work or communicating, new meetings or documentation practices. Sometimes this can help, but many times it feels like the issues that the team set out to solve haven't really gone…
I was a big fan of Rework and always felt the principles of that book were a great embodiment of the spirit of Agile (even though 37signals doesn't necessarily follow any of the frameworks that have been popularized alongside Agile). This made it particularly exciting when the book Shape Up was released which outlined their approach to product development.When I started reading Shape Up, I knew…
Ever since I was in school, one thing I've always done first thing in the morning is make my bed. Since it seems like a relatively simple task I never really thought about the effect it had on the rest of of my day, over the years it’s become a popular example of how small actions can create flow and set the tone for the rest of the day. That single task delivers an early win, which gives a…
n many organizations, there’s an unspoken belief that the most efficient system is one where everyone is operating at 100% capacity. On the surface, this seems logical (after all, idle time looks like waste) and if every person is busy all the time, surely the system is producing maximum output… right?Unfortunately, reality doesn’t work that way. Optimizing for full utilization…