Working principles · 01—32
Mantras.
Hard-won mantras shaped through experience: building Newicon, working with teams and pursuing personal projects.
Some are original, some are borrowed or adapted from people and companies I admire. They are not commandments. They are prompts: useful ways to challenge an assumption, unlock a conversation or find a better next step.
01—08
Transparency and trust
09—16
Empowerment and growth
17—30
Innovation and engineering
- 17.The simple, not the complex
All requirements are wrong
Close mantra ↑In any sufficiently complex system, requirements defined at the start are usually wrong.
Be especially suspicious of requirements supplied by smart or senior people. They are less likely to be challenged, but are still probably wrong.
- 19.Challenge constraints
- 20.Don’t #!@$ the customer
- 21.Pragmatic, not dogmatic
- 22.Use first-principles thinking
- 23.Aim to be less wrong over time
- 24.I don’t know is a superpower
- 25.Build rather than buy core skills
- 26.Ask why, why, why, why, why
- 27.Automate
- 28.Organise around the value stream
- 29.Be bold and break things
- 30.Make it visual
31—32