Gavin Barwell’s excellent book “Chief of Staff” is about his two years from 2017 in Theresa May’s government, and much of it is dominated by Brexit negotiations. In one chapter … Continue reading Let’s be thankful for hierarchy

Gavin Barwell’s excellent book “Chief of Staff” is about his two years from 2017 in Theresa May’s government, and much of it is dominated by Brexit negotiations. In one chapter … Continue reading Let’s be thankful for hierarchy
There are a couple of practices I value greatly, and which many engineers struggle with, usually for the same reason. One practice is planning for value in small increments, which … Continue reading There are many things to optimise for
A few years back I was talking to a team leader about their delivery schedule. Some of her stakeholders were keen on a planning to have two milestones every quarter—that … Continue reading Sharing the stakeholders’ mindset
I was talking once to a company director about the problems he was having with his company’s digital projects. He said that although they tracked their projects carefully, disastrous problems … Continue reading Incremental delivery takes practice
When you’re a leader, it’s fine to ask hard questions of your bosses. Maybe you even have fiery conversations with them. These are also fine in moderation (or at least … Continue reading Two sides of leadership
I was speaking once to a user researcher about her work. One of the things she mentioned was the importance of asking unbiased questions. When she said this she was … Continue reading Unbiased questions for everyone
There was a time when user testing wasn’t particularly practised. There was a general view—sometimes not explicitly stated—that we could devise a product or interface within our offices, launch it, … Continue reading Don’t let user testing promote ignorance
I love brown bag lunches, when someone talks about an interesting subject while (traditionally) everyone else eats their lunch around a table (or on the other side of their video … Continue reading Don’t just change what you know
Once upon a time I was with a number of colleagues and my then-boss, who had just come out of a meeting with the CEO. “He wants us to improve … Continue reading Not delivering creates distractions
The other day I was discussing with Tom Gilb my approach for breaking out of black and white thinking. I was saying that when presented with two undesirable options it’s … Continue reading Escaping black and white thinking—in pictures