Category: Agile
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How the Music Industry Became its Own Worst Enemy
This episode of the Hit Parade podcast from Slate is a wonderfully geeky look at how the record industry tried to kill retail sales of the single in the 90s in favour of the more lucrative album format, but it’s also a salutary lesson for businesses of all types. The album had of-course been the…
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Unknown Unknowns
Noah Brier has a great analysis of the true origins of the 'Unknown unknowns' framework which looks something like this: Despite being brought to wide attention by Donald Rumsfeld's remarks about Iraq, the concept has origins that seemingly stretch further back and derive from a military procurement context. The framework is a useful way of categorising risk…
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The Angel in The Marble
'Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.' Michelangelo I happened across this Michelangelo quote via this Hidden Brain podcast on the subject of marriage, and I rather liked…
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Blitzscaling
I wrote something about scale over on the agile business blog. About how in order to scale sometimes you need to do things that don't scale, and how difficult this can be in an organisation that is used to only thinking in terms of top-down, big projects, large spend, significant near-term return. The ability to…
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On Creating a Purpose-Driven Organisation
I've been driving back and forth to Kent over the past week (long story) so my podcast consumption has dramatically increased. This HBR Ideacast on creating a purpose driven organisation was fascinating (there's an article here on the same theme but the podcast is better) and it contained a few nuggets that I want to cut…
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The Buxton Index, and the Rhythm of Business
'The Buxton Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes its plans.' I came across the 'Buxton Index' via this Shane Parrish podcast with Patrick Collison founder of Stripe (which is really worth a listen). Seemingly originated by Professor John Buxton at…
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Monzo and Transparency
There's a lot to like in how (challenger bank) Monzo go about things. As well as creating genuinely customer-centric propositions that disrupt some of the complex nonsense involved in financial services, it's the way in which they do stuff which is so refreshing. Check out, for example, their tone of voice guide which instead of…
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Culture at Stripe
I liked the way that Patrick Collison, co-founder of the hugely successful Stripe summarised the key attributes that they actively seek in the people that they hire. 'I think the three that really stand out to me are this rigor and clarity of thought, this hunger, appetite, willfulness, determination, and this … warmth and desire…
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Scaling Agile
Over the past year I've been working with a large global corporate that is rolling out agile ways of working at scale through the organisation. The 'a' word is becoming somewhat overused and it can often be misunderstood or misappropriated, and yet as I argue in my book the application of agile structures and practice…
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Internal APIs and Service Oriented Architecture
It's commonly believed that there are three types of API: Open, or Public APIs which have no restrictions on access Partner APIs which are made available only to strategic partners Private or Internal APIs which expose systems or capabilities internally, and which are most often not open to external use All three are interesting but…