All posts filed under “Career

An Elegant Puzzle – Part 5

This week we discussed sections 3.6 through 3.11. 3.6 — Migrations: The Sole Scalable Fix to Tech Debt Houston asked how often you get guarded time to pay down tech debt, as it depends on management buy-in. Jamie has used…

Professional Development – 2020 – Week 14

Business Pricing Policies That Protect Your Brand (via Harvard Business Review) Successful brands typically implement unilateral policies that set the minimum resale price (MRP) or minimum allowable price (MAP). By designing, implementing, and enforcing these policies, brands can keep grey-markets…

An Elegant Puzzle – Part 4

This week we discussed sections 3.3 through 3.5. 3.3 — Visions and Strategies Being out of alignment as a manager of other managers (i.e., understanding what the team is actually doing) is an opportunity to miss out on potential productivity….

Professional Development – 2020 – Week 13

Business Will Governments Restrict Foreign Access to Pandemic Supplies? (via Harvard Business Review) In times of crisis — the article cites the Great Depression as an analogy — governments become self-interested, which can worsen the problem. Career How to Make…

An Elegant Puzzle – Part 3

This week we discussed sections 3.1 and 3.2 3.1 — Introduction to Systems Thinking Jamie has had experience with this when studying geology and rock weathering; you have to think at a different scale. For reference, here is Wikipedia’s page…

Professional Development – 2020 – Week 12

Business Building a Culture of Experimentation (via Harvard Business Review) “For every experiment that succeeds, nearly 10 don’t — and in the eyes of many organizations that emphasize efficiency, predictability, and ‘winning,’ those failures are wasteful.” Many companies are reluctant…

An Elegant Puzzle – Part 2

This week we discussed Section 2.3.3 through the end of Chapter 2. Section 2.4: Productivity in the Age of Hypergrowth If your company is growing, you essentially have a new company. Dennis is feeling this in his current role, and…

An Elegant Puzzle – Part 1

Our book club is growing! We’ve added Jamie Phillips and Ryan Cox to our current group (Jameson McGhee, Dennis Stepp, and Houston Miller). Dennis chose An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson as our next read. Here’s…