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
- 26.Ask why, why, why, why, why
Automate
Close mantra ↑Routine tasks are boring. Doing the same thing twice is boring. Following a process is boring when the process gets in the way.
If you automate your entire job, you should be celebrated and freed to work on the next big idea, not made redundant. There are always more worthwhile ideas than time to explore them.
The more time we free, the more time we can invest in those ideas.
- 28.Organise around the value stream
- 29.Be bold and break things
- 30.Make it visual
31—32