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chronicles

25
Apr
Friday Fun: How to Break Hiring Without Noticing

Friday Fun: How to Break Hiring Without Noticing

Nobody sets out to build a broken hiring system. If you recognise what follows, you are not observing the system from the outside. You are part of it.
5 min read
23
Apr
Engineers Are Not Slow. Your System Is Lying to You.

Engineers Are Not Slow. Your System Is Lying to You.

Most organisations do not suffer from slow engineering. They suffer from systems that delay decisions, fragment ownership, and hide reality behind reassuring signals.
4 min read
22
Apr
When Standards Decay, Systems Fail

When Standards Decay, Systems Fail

We did not democratise engineering. We diluted it. Standards did not disappear by accident. We replaced them. With noise, layers, and the illusion of competence. And now we are surprised the system no longer holds.
6 min read
21
Apr
The Organisation Is Not Slow. It Is Full.

The Organisation Is Not Slow. It Is Full.

There is a point in the life of every company where nothing is visibly broken, yet everything slows down.
4 min read
20
Apr
Monday Myth: Platform Teams Need Product Managers

Monday Myth: Platform Teams Need Product Managers

Most platform teams do not reach for product managers out of strategic clarity. They do so under pressure. Requests accumulate, priorities blur, and engineers operate reactively. Leadership inserts a layer to restore order.
6 min read
17
Apr
Faster Into Irrelevance

Faster Into Irrelevance

~90% of startups fail (CB Insights; Startup Genome). ~70% of transformations fail (McKinsey; BCG reports similar ranges). ~35–45% of features never get used (Standish Group; Pendo; Productboard). A large share of scale-ups stall after initial traction (ScaleUp Institute; OECD).
4 min read
16
Apr
The Market Does Not Reward Competence Anymore

The Market Does Not Reward Competence Anymore

There is a structural failure emerging in the market. Competence no longer guarantees opportunity. That shift does not come from a sudden lack of talent. It comes from a change in how the system detects, filters, and ultimately selects it.
4 min read
15
Apr
The Death of Ownership

The Death of Ownership

Ownership once carried weight. It signalled clarity and consequence: when work moved, someone could explain why. When it broke, someone fixed it. That signal has faded.
3 min read
14
Apr
Product Is Not Strategy. And It Is Breaking Engineering

Product Is Not Strategy. And It Is Breaking Engineering

Somewhere along the way, product management drifted from its core responsibility. It stopped making hard decisions and started managing ideas. That shift does not trigger alarms, yet it steadily degrades the system.
4 min read
13
Apr
Monday Myth: “Soft leadership builds strong engineering cultures”

Monday Myth: “Soft leadership builds strong engineering cultures”

In trying to soften leadership, organisations stripped away the very element that allows them to function under pressure: decisive, accountable direction.
5 min read