Writing
Anticipatory Awareness and the Election
The anxiety I feel about the actions of the Trump administration over the last few years reaches a new crescendo as Nov 3rd, 2020 rolls around. Instead of cycling endlessly through various "what-ifs," I am going to make use of a technique I teach others, useful for...
Principles vs Context: It’s Not About Choice
For Map Camp 2020, I had the absolute privilege of co-delivering a session with Farrah Campbell and Cat Swetel on principles in Wardley Mapping.
Ten Heuristics for Bad Times
A heuristic is a cognitive shortcut for decision-making. It is not guaranteed to be rational or even correct. It serves only to help you get to “good enough” in the short term. Here are ten to try in bad times…
A Broken Compass: Sentiment Analysis in the Tweetstream
About a year ago, I became acutely aware that my consumption of Twitter was becoming increasingly entangled with elevated levels of anxiety. Twitter has long been a wonderful way to connect with cool people I can't always see in person, so I didn't appreciate how my...
On Understanding the Self: Mapping and the Annual Review
https://twitter.com/callumflack/status/1074133278825693185 Back when I thought I needed to work in cubicles the rest of my life, I did something similar to this with mapping. I believe @kelseyhightower has as well. I do wish I...
For Founders
Let's talk about purposeful organizations, the overwhelm of too many sources of information, and what errors to avoid as a founder. https://youtu.be/3Qnk76qqaeM [I]n an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of...
Evolution and Being in Genesis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U7i02WWNaM How do you get through beginnings? What does it mean to be in Genesis? If you broke your work (and everything around it) down into parts, which ones are truly in genesis, and which ones have been done before (in other...
Tim Ebenezer — Mapping Policing in the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB-4ynJPDIA Absolutely fabulous conversation with Tim Ebenezer on Wardley Mapping and policing in the UK. We walk step-by-step through a hypothetical example, sharing our stories and experiences along the way!
Mario Platt: Evolution-informed Security Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwEjpgxRVCE What an absolute privilege it was to host LearnWardleyMapping Professional Member @madplatt! He sets us straight on strategy, security as a constraint vs an enabler, and The Four Problems we must address for an adequate...
If Mapping is the solution, what is the problem?
I've been wanting to understand what makes Wardley Mapping so incredibly useful to some and so completely inaccessible to others. After a conversation with Chris Donnelly, I offered the following prompt on Twitter:...
“Help” Is a Four-Letter Word
There is helpful help, and then there is unhelpful "help." Far too much help seems to fall into the latter category, and when someone “helps” — when it’s not asked for, when it presupposes too many incorrect assumptions, and when the relationship is not fair and...
The Conditions for Community
The Conditions for Community There’s an old joke that says you only need two tools in life: Duct tape, for things that move but shouldn’t, andWD-40, for things that don’t move but should. I have both in my toolbox at home, along with a number of other, more...
Evolve: A Quick Reference for Wardley Mapping
About two years ago, I was doing quite a bit of Wardley Mapping, and I found myself looking up the same parts of Simon's blog over and over. At the time I was super interested in information microsites (single-topic sites like this one), so I built one to host the one...
Wardley Mapping on Kumu.io
I’ve noticed that quite a few people have been writing purpose-built software for Wardley Mapping, and lately I’ve been feeling inspired to join them! I had some extra time last Saturday, so I sat down at my laptop in the hopes of hacking together a fancy D3.js...
The Wardley Mapping Canvas
The Wardley Mapping Canvas provides just the right amount of visual structure to help mapping practitioners make quick progress and have a better learning experience while building their first maps. The canvas has been added to the official RealtimeBoard template...
So you want to build a website
Every once in a while, I plan to share something I call a solution blueprint — a way to fulfill a particular business need that I think is universal enough to be offered as general advice for the current moment in time. Something to consider as a safe default. That...
Intro to Wardley Mapping
A hard truth of decision-making is that complete information will never be available. We use tools, techniques, shorthands, and experience-laden aphorisms to fill in the gaps, but they remain inadequate in addressing uncertainty. Our individual coping mechanisms are...
Deconstructing Ideas
Everything I’m Hoping Is in Your Elevator Pitch When I attend a pitch event, I sit with a notebook in my lap and sketch out a quick value chain of each product or solution while it is being described. At the end of each pitch, I write where I would focus first, were I...
The Five Focusing Steps for Human Systems
I don’t normally read textbooks just for fun. Ok, that’s not true. I wouldn’t normally read this textbook just for fun. It is, however, excellent reference material and worth a skim every once in a while. The textbook is Bill Dettmer’s The Logical Thinking Process,...
Wardley Mapping Tools and Techniques
This post has two main sections: A semi-serious reflection on the problem space of tools for mapping, and then a fun overview of all sorts of mapping tools and techniques, informed by discussion and sharing that took place at the inaugural Map Camp. A Reflection on...
Who Is the User, Really?
Thinking Globally When Constructing the Value Chain The Theory of Constraints teaches us the difference between local and global thinking with respect to systems and their performance. To think locally is to optimize each individual component of a system with the...
On Strategy
“Strategy” is an interesting word in that its absence of useful meaning is directly correlated with its frequency of use, as Dave Aron describes in his book, The Essence of Strategy: People put the word strategy next to other words in order to make them sound...
Batches and Iterations
The following is a rather unpolished glimpse into how we think about batch sizes and iterations. First, we expect our system to have a goal. For a software-building system made of people like ourselves, the goal is to deliver value in the form of working software. We...
Buffer Management for Meal Prepping
This post describes an attempt to apply theory practically (praxis) to solve a silly little problem. My wife and I are getting serious about cutting our restaurant spending, so we have been cooking large batches of food to store and eat throughout the week. Cooking in...
On Diversity
Just a few years ago, I would not have been able to articulate why organizational diversity matters. (I know that for a fact, because I once offered a barely adequate, fumbling answer during an interview. Despite somehow getting the job, I remained largely clueless...
Hidden Complexities
Originally published September 24, 2016 I consider sense-making to be a component of Landscape and Doctrine (from Sun Tzu’s Five Factors), and so I am incorporating a short overview of Cynefin into an upcoming talk on strategy. While outlining, I toyed with a few...
Wardley Mapping, A PowerPoint Template
Originally published June 25, 2016 One particularly coherent approach to “strategy” involves using a map to pursue increased situational awareness from which to execute various forms of gameplay. This technique is known as Wardley Mapping, and I highly recommend...
Cutting Costs. Or, How to Pretend Complex is Simple.
Originally published March 20, 2016 Suppose a company discovers that its projected revenue is below original expectations for reasons outside of its direct control. The bottom-line numbers are going to look bad, so something must be done immediately. Cost-cutting...
Cynefin, Culture Change as Complex
Originally published February 27, 2016 The Cynefin framework (created by Dave Snowden) reveals that Complicated or Simple approaches break down and can only succeed by complete accident in the Complex domain, because causality is only clear in retrospect. From this...