People

Chez Agile Chef

July 23, 2020
Reading Time: 1 minute

Alice Waters, internationally recognized chef, pioneer of the farm-to-table movement and *owner of Chez Panisse*.

Alice Waters says (and does) it best: start with good ingredients and discern for yourself.

Mastery: The Good and the Ugly

June 19, 2020
Reading Time: 1 minute

*The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* (1966).

There are two sides to mastery: the good and the ugly.

The good side of mastery is something to strive for: be a perfectionist, dedicate yourself to a task, do something to be proud of.

But mastery is a whole different thing for those who think they know (or are) better. This sort of “mastery” begets narrow-mindedness and petty rigidity.

Knowing enough to think you are right, but not knowing enough to know you are wrong.”
—Neil deGrasse Tyson

Agile Fight Club

June 7, 2020
Reading Time: 1 minute

Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Agile.

The first rule of Agile is

You do not talk about Agile.

The second rule of Agile is

Mixed Agile Arts

April 2, 2020
Reading Time: 1 minute

*Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* (2000).

“Agile” is everywhere and for good reasons.

If only you could reverse-engineer all that agility and mass-reproduce it.

Specialists and experts alike have been working hard at it, playbooks in hand, with tools in tow and metrics to boot.

You will want to follow their lead but the truth is, you will be misguided.

No Data for Great

July 11, 2019
Reading Time: 1 minute

Rich Roat, co-founder of House Industries, the design studio and font company that is a standard-bearer of American design.

Management loves its metrics and for good reason: “What gets measured gets done.”

The problem is, no data tells good from great. Quite the contrary, actually. Pay too much attention to data and you’ll miss the point of it all.