Category: Agile
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Not as Simple as Pushing a Button
One of Tom Whitwell’s ’52 Things I Learned’ (another excellent list this year as always) related to how the push button was a somewhat controversial interface when it was first introduced in the 1880s. Digging a bit further there’s some interesting parallels with more current concerns about contemporary technologies and interfaces. Prior to the new…
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Dazzle Camouflage and Reframing a Problem
I love this example of reframing a problem that relates to the dazzle camouflage which was invented (by British Marine Artist Norman Wilkinson) and extensively used during World War One to help protect warships. British Zoologist John Graham Kerr had originally proposed using disruptive camouflage to break up the outline of ships, using the example…
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Death Circles
What teams can learn from Army Ants, and how to avoid ‘death spirals’
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How Knowledge Access Drives Innovation
In the late 19th Century Andrew Carnegie was the richest man in the world. From being a poor Scottish immigrant to the US he went on to build a steel empire which he sold to JP Morgan for almost half a billion dollars. He then proceeded to give most of his self-made fortune away, including…
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Agile Marketing is NOW OUT
So, big news. My third book is published TODAY. It was a real labour of love to write this one but I’m so pleased with how it turned out. You can read more about why I wrote it here but I’ve also uploaded a sample chapter for you to access which is taken from the…
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Agile Marketing: Announcing my Third Book
Announcing the launch of my third book, on Agile Marketing
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Raspberry Jam and the Cost of Measurement
I liked Chris Bolton’s way of talking about the cost of measurement (and the cost of not measuring things). He uses a letter written and sent to the British Foreign Office in London by the Duke of Wellington in 1812. At the time Wellington was marching towards Madrid with his army, trying to rid Spain…
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Sacred Hours
Finding and creating space in busy schedules to write, try stuff out, make meaningful progress through deep work or just to take a step back to think seems to be more difficult than ever. It's certainly something that I've long struggled with. And I think working from home, the endless Zoom calls and the increasingly…
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When to Let Go
I loved this framing of situational leadership that came originally from Alice Chapman but was featured by Will Myddelton as a way of describing the challenge of knowing when to direct as a leader, and when to let go. Will describes how in his own leadership journey he was struggling to understand how to adapt…
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On Comfort with Dissent, and Moving Fast
In my book I talk about the importance of psychological safety in supporting agile culture and the ability of teams to move fast. And one of the best ways that I've found of describing what this means is the combination of mutual trust and respect and comfort with dissent. Trust is essential since if trust…