In Scrum, you’re supposed to use the iterative process to identify blockers and impediments — things that are stopping the development team from doing what they’re being asked to do.

There’s a meeting every day — the stand-up — where these can be raised. And there’s a longer meeting every…

Customer Charlie is a product manager at the Alternative Cake Company.

Charlie has had an idea for a cake made with a novel flour. Flour from edible Mediterranean acorns (safety warning, edible acorns exists, but only in countries around the Mediterranean, the ones you would probably find in a park…

Here’s a weird contradiction. But I’ve noticed it more than once.

The people who say they really want the project, start to lose their nerve when it looks like it will be delivered.

Why?

I think the answer is something to do with the Cynefin framework https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework .

Cynefin means…

I’ve known this for years. But like a lot of contradictions, I’ve noticed it, avoided it, carried on as if I haven’t seen it.

This is just the plain truth. How much a project is going to take and valuable it’s going to be, there’s a substantial degree to which…

If you’ve embarked on this journey of managing projects, you might do well to read and re-read “Zen in the Art of Archery” by Eugen Herrigel.

Why?

There are a lot of things in that short book that echo through the business of managing projects.

This is going to sound…

I made this note a couple of days ago.

Foam is natural.

Foam exists.

Foam is a solid that’s made out of liquid and air. Foam shouldn’t exist. Well, in one view of the world, that thinks things should be what we think they are, foam shouldn’t exist.

But foam…

Now that I’ve been trying to write every day for a month, I’ve come to realise something that should have been obvious.

Any strategy that involves just breathing out is going to encounter problems.

At some point, you need to take a breath and breathe in.

I think I’m getting…

A lot of what I’ve been writing over the last four weeks or so has been about trying to identify contradictions.

But of course, the hardest contradictions to identify are the ones in yourself, in your own thinking and in your own behaviour.

Here are some of the ways that…