Quick reads: week 40

Managers don't deliver features, they deliver decisions. Yet we rarely focus on improving these flows.

The longer managers have decisions in progress (decision aging), the more decisions they have in progress (their WIP). The higher a manager's WIP, the longer the cycle time and the lower the throughput. That means people don't know what to do and decide for themselves. People can't wait any longer for a management decision.

Fresh take on managers' invisible work that is, ironically, often unmanaged. When managers improve decision flow, predictability, quality, and speed increase. To become more agile, start with management. The rest will be much easier.

Flow Metrics and Why They Matter to Teams and Managers - Johanna Rothman

I continue to work with people who have trouble with their agile approach. They tell me their relative estimation isn't working for them. They continue to roll over items, from sprint to sprint. They've rolled over some items for six months or longer. The people feel demoralized. And the Scrum Masters or agile project managers […]

Why Minimize Management Decision Time - Johanna Rothman

I wrote Unearthing Your Project's Delays a couple of years ago. I told the story of Cliff, a manager who wanted to understand why the projects were so late. I gave several talks about that article. One eagle-eyed fellow asked me this question, “How long was the time from T0 to T1?” I said, “Managers […]

As an expert your call is to solve the problem, not create more experts.

Many systems and complexity-informed thinkers become bogged down in selling complexity, uncertainty, systems thinking, and the like. Meanwhile, most people in an organization are looking for a solution and path forward, not a lecture about “the system”. They rightfully see outcomes as a result of collection actions and behaviors, so they are really wondering what you should do, not necessarily think. They also want to be a co-author of the solution and the narrative.

Good documentation is tailored to the intended usage ( diataxis.fr ). The same applies to advice. Focusing on theory, when called to provide a solution fast, shows we missed this critical requirement.

TBM 380: “But We Have To Try Something!”

You’ve likely heard the saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, and expecting different results.” Humans have an intuitive sense of what scientists call attractor states, the concept that systems tend to revert to the same patterns unless external factors change.

I don’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want it.

Common responses to implementing changes. The bigger the change, the stronger the resistance. A quick reference for spotting and addressing the underlying challenges.

Mind the Gap Model | Meyer’s Management Models | toolshero

The Mind the Gap Model identifies the 3 categories of challenges encountered by managers trying to cross the gap between the current state and the intended future state

Pulse: Model Context Protocol Directory

Awesome collection of MCP servers & more. E.g. Connect LLMs to DBs for shema understanding and optimizations.

MCP Server Directory: 6150+ updated daily | PulseMCP

A daily-updated directory of all Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers available on the internet. Connect your AI apps to external data sources and services.

Automatic Infinite Undo

Watchman + Jujutsu automatic commits = never lose a change. Combines well with coding assistants.

# https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45420710
# ~/.jjconfig.toml
[core]
fsmonitor = "watchman"

[core.watchman]
# Newer docs use the hyphenated key below:
register-snapshot-trigger = true

GitHub - facebook/watchman: Watches files and records, or triggers actions, when they change.

Watches files and records, or triggers actions, when they change. - GitHub - facebook/watchman: Watches files and records, or triggers actions, when they change.