Flat. It’s an organizational meme in rapidly growing teams in the Valley and it contains a couple of noble ideas. Simply put: a flat organization is one with as little hierarchy as possible to encourage the individual voice. What’s not to love? The first challenge to the flat organizational mantra is the inevitable arrival of… more
You know this meeting. It’s the meeting where, when anyone hears the attendee list, they instantly know, “Oh, it’s that meeting.” Something is up: a product is at risk, a strategy is being redefined, or a decision of magnitude is being considered. Slide reviews are conducted via email, rehearsals are performed, and demos are fine-tuned.… more
In the late 1800s, the Brooklyn Bridge was built with no power tools, no heavy machinery, and only a basic, evolving understanding of how to make steel. It’s not these facts, but the stories surrounding the facts that inspire me when I take a good, long stare at a suspension bridge. But first… Stunning. In… more
Larry was pissing me off. We were a year into a two-year development process. Far enough along to have confidence that we could do it, but not far enough to be sure when we would get there. Features were claimed to be done, but each build of the product was a study in broken and… more
As an engineer, if you want to piss off someone who is asking you whether you can or can’t build a thing, just say, “Given enough time, I can build anything”. They’ll believe you’re dodging the question, and they’ll think you’re arrogant. As a means of negotiating a schedule or a feature, this answer is… more
Think of this. You have a job where, whenever you need to, you can find the absolute truth. When someone asks you, “Phil, why is this happening?” you are 100% confident that you can figure out the precise answer. This is the idyllic situation many engineers on the planet Earth live in, and, well, it’s… more
I’m searching my articles from last year regarding SXSW and I can’t find any documentation of one of the major discoveries. SXSW is the only conference I know where designers and developers hang out. Designers have design conferences. Developers have nerd conferences. SXSW has somehow convinced both parties to head to Austin and actually talk… more
There’s a very short list of new manager “must do’s” in the Rands Management Rule Book. The brevity of this list comes from the fact that a must is an absolute and when it comes to people, there are very few absolutes. A clever way to manage one person is a disaster when applied to… more
Right this second, there are five books sitting on my desk. I’m not talking about the invisible books stacked up next to my monitor, I’m talking about the books I want you to see the second you walk in my office. They change over time, but right now they are: The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary… more
There’s a Screwed Scenario that I missed. Back in my Borland days, we were working hard on Paradox for Windows. I was a QA engineer testing the database creation and modification functionality. My counterpart in engineering, Jerry, was working hard, but getting absolutely nowhere. We were mid-to-late in a 1.0 product cycle and most of… more
