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
Build rather than buy core skills
Close mantra ↑If you do not understand how something works, you are not in a position to assess it properly. Sometimes the best way to learn is to build it yourself.
If something is a core skill or responsibility, prefer to build rather than buy. It may take longer and cost more, but expertise matters. There is nothing worse than being unable to fix a customer’s problem because you have hit a vendor’s wall.
Be pragmatic, not dogmatic. If the technology is peripheral, well understood and better for the customer, buying remains a valid option.
Software development is the one profession that will pull in an entire aeroplane when all it needs is a fan. Every unused part adds surface area, potential vulnerabilities and more possible states for the system.
- 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