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

Why Minimize Management Decision Time - Johanna Rothman

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!”

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

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

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.