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Failure Demand The concept of failure demand was first described by John Seddon in his book “I Want You to Cheat”, published in 1992. It was initially called “demand we don’t want” and later, after much careful thought, re-named “failure demand”. (more)

product team agency

Venkatesh Rao term: something fundamentally mediocre (lowish value/quality), but with some extra-yet-pointless feature that makes it seem better. e.g. paying for signalling. Or even an entire Lifestyle Design outcome. (more)

You are not Steve Jobs, I am not Steve Jobs, your boss/CEO certainly isn't Steve Jobs.

The purpose of a system is what it does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does (more)

framing by Kent Beck of business stages requiring different processes/trade-offs: Explore, Expand, Extract (cf PMF) (more)

Bad call center advice - The Vanguard Method. Commerce Magazine published two short articles on solving call centre problems. They are repeated below with additional comments by John Seddon. (more)

John Cutler: TBM 205: "Process" vs. Systems & Habits. (more)

John Cutler: TBM 227: Explicit vs. Implicit Strategy. I've been (slowly) reading Richard Rumelt's new book, The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists (more)

Gordon Brander: Noosphere at Summer of Protocols. I gave a talk about Noosphere Protocol at the Summer of Protocols program. (more)

Steven Johnson: Return Of The “Progress City.” A few weeks ago, the Times broke a story about a secretive group of high-tech luminaries who had been quietly buying up farmland in Solano County (more)

John Cutler: TBM 221: Strategy = Insights^Conviction. Getting shit done (Getting Things Done) is an exercise in deciding what NOT to do, and the policies that nudge those decisions in the right direction are what I would expect from a well-tuned business strategy. (more)

John Cutler: TBM220: Effort vs. Value Curves. Why is it important to consider the effort vs. value curve? (more)

John Cutler: TBM 211: Product-Reality Fit (PRF). Product-market fit (PMF) is important, and yes, it comes "first." But assume you have "it." Your biggest challenge is PRF: Product Reality Fit. (more)

John Cutler TBM 9/52: Writing Culture Challenges. A writing culture is a reading culture and a feedback-giving culture. (Org Writing Practices) (more)

Senior officials ordered destruction of Vallejo police shooting evidence. In January 2021, officials for the city of Vallejo intentionally — and with approval from a senior attorney for the city — destroyed key evidence in multiple police killings and one non-fatal shooting (more)

A responsibility assignment matrix[1] (RAM), also known as RACI matrix[2] (/ˈreɪsi/) or linear responsibility chart[3] (LRC), describes the participation by various roles in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process. RACI is an acronym derived from the four key responsibilities most typically used: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed.[4] It is used for clarifying and defining roles and responsibilities in cross-functional or departmental projects and processes.[5] There are a number of alternatives to the RACI model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix (more)

Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi believe that Cognitive Democracy (Democracy) offers superior outcomes for Problem Solving in Complex Systems than Markets and Command And Control systems ("hierarchy"). Specifically, we argue that democracy has unique benefits as a form of collective problem solving in that it potentially allows people with highly diverse perspectives to come together in order collectively to solve problems. Democracy can do this better than either markets and hierarchies, because it brings these diverse perceptions into direct contact with each other, allowing forms of learning that are unlikely either through the price mechanism of markets or the hierarchical arrangements of bureaucracy. Furthermore, democracy can, by experimenting, take advantage of novel forms of collective cognition (collective intelligence) that are facilitated by new media. Disputation Arena?

Steve Gurney hosted a webcast with Bill Thomas (creator of Eden Alternative) on "Better Together: The Awesome Power of Growing Stronger Together". (more)