AI did not write this article. I did not ask it to edit what I wrote or to suggest content. But I am starting to ask Glean and Gemini to summarise things. They capture meeting outcomes and simplify my waffle when I write content. They also take over a lot of the creative work I do. I guess if I wrote speculative fiction or poetry then that would raise ethical questions about whether I am creating new stories or just retrieving what others have written.

Have you ever had a day where you realised your mouth was moving faster than the evidence you base your informed opinions on? Today I told someone we need to improve how we do showcases to engage our stakeholders. Then I went to a near perfect showcase and though "yep that is what I am saying we should do." Then someone asked if we had solved a problem and new how to approach it when it happens.

I am often fascinated by 2 unrelated things. Firstly, how often I use quotes from Princess Bride and Hitchikers Guide to explain my serious thinking.  Secondly, how often I find that we use a word or phrase when discussing serious ifeas and assume other people interpret it the same way we do. Then later we discover that we were talking at cross purposes.

This is much greater than the previous interstellar objects.

There is an old saying in process design. I think it comes from the Swiss Cheese theory of risk management. Every near miss is a gift, you should make good use of it Basically for every disaster there is almost always a history of Several near misses where an issue occurred but "luckily" something prevented it from happening; There was a false alarm or similar event that turned out not to be the real thing, we found gaps and then "luckily" we were relieved to find it was a false alarm; and…

I asked Gemini to write a blog article for me. I think it failed to emulate my long-winded style, but I liked the article. So here is a view of management and the use of numbers. I do believe in evidence and using measures to make decisions and align people ... and more. But I do agree it is more nuanced.

Six cars are caught in a pile-up as a family of ducks attempts to cross busy Kwinana Freeway during the morning peak hour in Perth.

I was talking to someone about the people I want in my team. They are team oriented. They are open to conversations that involve both respect and conflict. They are willing to fill the gaps we have rather than referring to a job description. But "willing to fill gaps" carries with it two dangers: We can create a misalignment between authority and accountability…

New radio astronomy results reveal how galaxies exchange gas with the intergalactic medium – the raw material for stars and the key to galactic evolution.

A long time ago, people suggested doing "hardening sprints." During these sprints, we would slow down to recover every 3-4 sprints. It's an anti-pattern to make things worse as you sprint along and then hope to fix it later. Firstly people add stuff to the sprint because it looks like free time. Secondly everything that decays takes a lot longer to fix after it has decayed.

The need to better protect consumers was raised years ago in the banking royal commission. So why does it feel like we are back here again?

Wealth inequality is a growing problem, with the richest 20% of Australians owning more than 60% of our wealth. But for true happiness, more money is rarely enough.

I noticed someone recently, which others may have seen. It may even have a name but I have not heard of it. The paradox is that sometimes something is so obvious to me, I will skip doing it and then assume I did it. The result is that some obvious step or habit is missed, but I then assume later that I would have done it.

I was thinking about metrics and estimation approaches this week. Interesting topics to be sure. For reasons that are probably clear, I have decided that we need to keep reiterating what good metrics look like. I guess the summary is that good metrics are the ones that help us learn from them in order to get good results. Bad metrics are ones that do not help us understand whether the work we are doing can be improved or whether we hit a goal.

I was thinking about some agile platitudes that I like, that I hate and that I sometimes hear without actually thinking about them. My interest was piqued when I saw a comment on LinkedIn about "Being Agile rather than doing Agile". The article asserts that the comment suggests lazy thinking and I agreed with that. But I also know there are organisations that have forced release trains, sprints, and stories on people.

I had two very different experiences this week, that led me to think more about compliance. I was thinking about compliance as an attitude, rather than an obligation or set of rules to be followed. I wondered if there was such a thing as "having a compliance mindset". I did extensive research, but unfortunately AI gave me two contradictory definitions. …

One man slipped and fell on his back as per CCTV, while another left police with a clue as to his identity after fleeing the scene in flames.

I catch the train to work on the days that I am in the office. If you asked me to point of catching a train, I would say that it is to get to a destination. But without saying anything, I guess I also like the journey itself. Or, at least, I like the journey when the train is on time and there is room to sit, while I don't like the journey when other passengers behave like hyenas who recently learned to dress like humans but never learned to share space with civilised humans.

The rush for ‘climate visas’ to escape Tuvalu shows the extraordinary need for schemes that enable people to migrate in a warmer world.

People often refer to "Utopia" as a good idea, but not something real. Sometimes they go further and hold a meaningful discussion about what a (near) perfect world could look like, as in this book on the subject This is a great topic for discussion, but I wonder if we can use a view of Utopia for the practical purpose of setting our goals at work.

One Nation's success affirms the 2016 Senate reforms in ensuring that Senate elections were decided by voters, not the opaque deals of preference traders.

This is a bit of a worry. I have been getting into AI and finding it really good. There is hype but also surprising value. At the moment I am using Claude to clean up old content in Confluence and to summarise the outcomes of multiple workshops and interviews. I have also just been watching Linear B deliver some powerful sprint based metrics and some excellent summaries of where teams can look for improvements in their delivery.

I hear a lot about how leaders should show vulnerability in order to create psychological safety and an open, learning culture. I agree that we as leaders (and humans) will get better results from people when we are authentic, human and willing to admit we are flawed. I also agree that when in a position of authority it is good to be the one who goes first in sharing a willingness to learn, a willingness to admit being wrong and in particular to be open and clear when we fall short of our own expectations.