Improving the world with software
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Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
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The core question for AI adoption and transformation. Answer this one before any other.
How fast are you learning? That's it. That's the question you should be asking about AI adoption — before compute, before tooling, before anything else.
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314 essays in the archive
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The core question for AI adoption and transformation. Answer this one before any other.
How fast are you learning? That's it. That's the question you should be asking about AI adoption — before compute, before tooling, before anything else.
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When “Don’t Repeat Yourself” Makes Code Worse – Learning Elixir And Re-learning Recursion
Thanks to a conversation with Erik Schön, I was learning Elixir while waiting for my plane back from DevLin 2025. I decided to go through the Roman numeral kata to slowly get into Elixir. When the algorithm was coming together I hit this interesting moment where I saw a lot of repetition, and asked Claude …
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The 10x Developer Myth Has Destroyed Our Ability to Learn in The Software Industry
When we think of software development as a single-person endeavor – the reason the 10x developer myth matters – we miss what actually matters: it’s a team sport, it’s about managing growing complexity, and it’s about communication, coordination, and planning. Research suggests the 10x myth might be just that – when you factor in code …
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Agile Project Management—The Delusional Role
Bare with me, I’m trying to make a point. Read through, leave the flame wars for other posts. An Agile Project Manager is an oxymoron, a contradiction. You can’t be “agile” and “project manager” at the same time. Here’s some examples: Why? You correctly ask: BECAUSE the theories of the world for Project Management and …
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How AI will clog our product development processes…
I recognize the temptation. “If I could only do this fastidious planning work a bit faster, I’d get home earlier…” Sure, it’s easy to see how AI would write User Stories faster… BUT: the real world is different: the whole point of product work is navigating uncertainty. We don’t know what’s valuable yet. That’s the …
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Software Has Outgrown Project Management (And PMI Knows It)
The same software that runs your morning train, powers your VISA card, and keeps airplanes in the sky has evolved far beyond what traditional project management can handle. “Captain’s Log, Stardate 2024: We’re lost, but we’re making good time according to the project plan!” If this sounds absurd, that’s because it is. Yet this is …
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The Leadership Mistake That’s Killing Your Team’s Focus (And How to Stop It)
Have you ever been in a meeting where leadership shares their latest great idea, and you can feel the anxiety spreading across the team? I have. The developers exchange knowing looks – they’re already struggling with an overloaded sprint, the backlog is growing, and now here comes another “high priority” initiative. You can almost hear …
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We Need Alternatives To Project Management: Here’s an Agile Alternative
Project management, as we know it, is a recent invention. Though some argue it’s ancient, it’s really only become mainstream in the 20th century—not unlike computing. Project management requires a rigid set of beliefs: the ability to plan ahead, follow a fixed schedule, and predict how what we do affects our goals before we even …
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The key to successful engineering teams: The OTOG Principle
Have you ever wondered why some software teams seem to be in constant conflict between product ambitions and technical realities, while others achieve the impossible together?Here’s what I’ve learned about great teams, and great organizations from my experience as a developer, project manager, product manager, director of product, and running my own company as well …
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Agile change catalyst wanted! Let’s work together
I’m looking for an Agile Change Catalyst. Are you that Agile Change Catalyst? Read on! In an age where people are saying “Agile is dead”, I think it is important for us to recognize that in practice, what is being said is probably more: “agile is not new, and shiny, so I’m not so enthusiastic …
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What does the future of #Agile look like? And other critical questions from #Oredev 2023
This week marks the rebirth of my hope for humanity, and the #Agile and #Software communities!I was at #Oredev (one of the largest software development conferences in Europe), and got inspired by all kinds of talks, and corridor conversations.Below is a list of some important questions I got inspired to ask during #Oredev, and will …
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How to “control” a software project, and why control is never achieved with planning
When a software project starts, and we’ve put considerable effort into the planning tasks, we feel the project is under control. Or “in control”. However, that’s fundamentally wrong. I tried to come up with a way to describe how I understand control in software projects, to illustrate the need and applicability of the empirical management …
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