The working week, reflected
Weeknotes
A running log of what moved, what did not, and what I am taking forward. Newest first.
The Finishing Line Changes the Question
Earlier in a quarter, asking whether something is broadly on track can be useful. Near the end, it gets much less comfortable and much more specific: what are we actually going to finish?
Appreciation Is a Skill
A few days off with a nasty bug taught me something I keep having to relearn: you don't appreciate what you take for granted until you lose it, even briefly.
A Room Built for Decisions
A room built specifically for decisions still needs someone in it willing to disagree.
The House Next Door
The house next door has the drawers in all the same places as yours. Same kitchen layout, probably fitted by the same firm. Some things stay the same house to house — everyone keeps the t…
Show, Don't Stage
Real delivery review is what happens when you stop asking teams to perform readiness and start asking them to show it.
Recharged, Into the Deep End
Two weeks properly switched off, then straight into two governance "firsts" in the same week — either terrible timing, or exactly the right one.
Handing Over the Rituals
This week I stopped running two of the regular rituals that keep our delivery team ticking — on purpose.
Borrow before you build
Next week is appointments quarterly planning. This week was what came before it.
Playing in Position
There's a reason you don't see good football teams all running after the ball. Young kids do it because the instinct is to help, to be where the action is. But it doesn't work. Everyone c…
The Gain inside the Gap
Not all of it landed. The SLT session that most of this week was building towards — two weeks of conversations, synthesis, thinking done in the open — missed the mark. The cluster leads I…
The difference one word makes
Some weeks you execute the plan. This week, the plan arrived Monday morning in an email and the job became building a new one in four days.
Line of Sight
The question that kept coming up across different conversations this week — a commercial review, two DSIT sessions, a supplier call — was the same one in different clothes: can you actual…
Homeostasis With a Bigger Headcount
We're good at adding structure. We're less good at asking whether what we've added still fits.
The Short Week That Wasn't
Bank holiday weeks have a collective fiction built into them — everyone agrees it's a "short week," which somehow makes it acceptable that the same demands get compressed into fewer days.…
Being in the Room
Two days in Leeds this week, each with its own character.
Waistcoats and Workshops
First week back after getting married, and there were a lot of kind words and good wishes after the wedding. It was a genuinely magical day, we feel very lucky and I got to wear a waistco…
Delegated does not mean done
A short week has a way of exposing what is actually under control.
Scaling, Handoffs, Pizza & Dunbar
One thing I’ve been mulling over this week is the challenge in front of us as we scale.