A small leadership lesson. Tokyo train systems are legendary for running on time. How do they do it? A key element is pointing and calling — when taking an action, the operator points and calls it out so that everyone knows what is happening. It may seem like drawing attention…

The Overview Effect is a cognitive shift that is reported by astronauts when they see the earth from outer space for the first time. It is a change brought on by experiencing the world differently. Strongly held beliefs unfold. …

When we spend time focussing on specific problems, it comes at the cost of the ability to focus on others. The mind becomes conditioned to make certain things invisible, no matter how many times we look them over. In the case of this article, it might be a spelling mistake…

This is Minard’s analysis of the fall of Napoleon’s Grand Army at the French invasion of Russia in 1812, considered a masterpiece of analytic design: It features in my favourite book by Edward Tufte, “Beautiful Evidence”, as the focal piece for explaining the principles of data presentation. …

Key Takeaways “Synthetic” means to find truth through experience, to use experiential practices to build understanding. Software systems demand synthetic problem solving — we test, observe, and experiment to validate our work and ascertain its value. The history of building software systems is a history of discovering and formalizing synthetic ways of…

How to make better strategic sourcing decisions for your software supply chain The market for application components delivered in the cloud using a subscription model is exploding — it spans the software supply chain and it is growing constantly. Given the high quality of these component services, it can be difficult to determine how to source your parts — should you use…

Thinking about software delivery as part of a supply chain can help clarify the problems large enterprises face, and provides a better way to move forward with integrating activities and achieving systemic benefits Seasoned business leaders are experiencing an uneasy feeling of déjà vu. Adapting to the digital world, they…

Technology decisions that ignore cultural debt will involve more cycles and greater risk — Businesses today are faced with myriad challenges to innovate and optimize. In doing so, we often need to make decisions that borrow against the future. This can come in a tangible form, such as taking money from investors to fund growth, or in more inconspicuous forms, such as making tradeoffs…

If you’ve spent a bit of time coding, you will come across the interesting and unusual idea of idempotence. The word not lending itself well to either spelling or pronunciation, many like me become immediately curious. A concept found deep at the heart of mathematics and computer science, idempotence is…