Essays and Notes

Who Writes the Answer Key?

In which three reasonable people grade the same answer three ways.

Essay / 22 min

Latest

all 31 →

Somewhere Between Six and Seven

In which a six-sided die keeps coming up seven.

Essay / 16 min

Reading for the Seams

In which polish stops proving there was a mind behind it.

Essay / 8 min

Version Eleven

In which the rule outlives the reason.

Essay / 7 min

The Interface Was the Meter

In which the interface no longer matters, perhaps.

Essay / 12 min

Deep Current

all 6 →

Where software economics are actually heading.

The Machine Did Exactly What We Asked Of It

In which the failure happens long before the machine gets involved.

Note / 6 min

The Systems That Hold

In which somebody still has to carry the sign.

Note / 6 min

The Coughing Problem

In which four exceptions turn out to be four exceptions.

Note / 6 min

A Hundred Meant a Hundred

In which the Mongols leave little room for "for this one."

Note / 3 min

The Relay

all 3 →

What BizOps does, and why it keeps being misread.

Borrowed Authority

In which the room decides how much authority you have.

Note / 4 min

182 Customers, Give or Take Eight

In which the word "customer" has been moonlighting.

Essay / 17 min

Ghost State

In which someone adds a field called Real Close Date.

Essay / 7 min

The Signal

all 6 →

Measuring a thing is not the same as understanding it.

Reading the Air

In which the meetings get suspiciously easy.

Essay / 7 min

Listening to the Shoulder

In which the number, annoyingly, has only moved.

Note / 3 min

The Clean Line

In which the best chart ever drawn leaves most of the war out.

Note / 4 min

The Systems That Hold

In which somebody still has to carry the sign.

Note / 6 min

The Scaffold

all 6 →

How organizations get less wrong over time.

Just Ask Jamie

In which the bus factor stops being hypothetical.

Note / 4 min

The Perimeter Is Spotless

In which the floor gets swept and the hard problem waits.

Note / 6 min

And Then They Went Home

In which the railing stays worried long after everyone else calms down.

Essay / 8 min

The Ledger

all 4 →

Money as operating system.

Roughly 14.327%

In which three decimal places do the persuading a methodology couldn't.

Note / 4 min

Cash Is the Operating System

In which liquidity is infrastructure, not a metric.

Essay / 10 min

Taming the Spreadsheet Hydra

In which every fix grows another tab.

Note / 4 min

Common Ground

all 3 →

The politics of having to work together.

What Beats Integrity?

In which honesty and kindness meet on clay.

Essay / 10 min

Maybe a Fern

In which a railroad too long to walk is drawn as a tree.

Note / 5 min

Walk the Fence

In which structure turns out to be a courtesy.

Note / 6 min

The Wiring

all 3 →

The org chart is not the wiring diagram.

Centralize. Embed. Repeat.

In which org charts prove temporary, and relationships compound.

Note / 6 min

A Vendor Map With Ambitions

In which every box on the diagram has a story.

Note / 3 min

A Hundred Meant a Hundred

In which the Mongols leave little room for "for this one."

Note / 3 min

Michael Spradlinmpspradlin.com