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
- 18.All requirements are 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
Ask why, why, why, why, why
Close mantra ↑Borrow a technique from lean engineering: ask why five times.
Keep asking until you reach the root problem, then fix that. It works for business issues, processes and code. It helps you reach first principles instead of treating symptoms.
- 27.Automate
- 28.Organise around the value stream
- 29.Be bold and break things
- 30.Make it visual
31—32