In Defense of Remote work (and Marissa Mayer)
Recently Yahoo CEO Marrisa Mayer decreed that working from home would be banned at the company. In a company…
Category: Management
On What Your Culture Really Says
There’s an excellent rant on startup culture making the rounds called What Your Culture Really Says (archive link)by Shanley Kane.…
How do you hire for culture?
Bob Sutton wrote bravely about the No Asshole Rule, and how talent should never excuse destructive behavior. It’s a…
Why you should pick your own boss
Ty Clark asked me for advice on job seeking: The best advice I’ve ever heard about picking a job…
How to learn from a nuclear missile
One great way to learn is to study a field you know little about. By becoming a tourist, a…
Learning about management from open source projects
In the course of working on the new book about my time working for WordPress.com, I’ve been reading various books…
You are not what you measure
On the day you die, what will your friends and family remember about who you were? At work, they…
The hypocrisy of bosses asking for ideas
I discovered the CBC Comedy The Newsroom a decade ago, while watching PBS late one night. I didn’t know…
How much vacation would you take if you could?
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a poll asking “If you had unlimited vacation, how much would you take? The…
Are design exercises in interviews unethical?
Recently my friend Jared Spool posted on twitter about why it’s wrong to give interview candidates design exercises: Asking…
How to Make Things Happen
This is an excerpt from Making Things Happen, the classic bestselling book on leading project teams, decision making and everything…
The problem with The New Groupthink
I’m an introvert. I like being an introvert. I’m glad someone is clarifying what introverts are or are not,…
Can you thrive on a sinking ship?
Josh, one of my kickstarter supporters for my Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds, asked this question. My place…
Executives and fake decisions
We all do it now and then: we have a decision made in mind, but we ask friends and…
Are PMs worth more than game designers?
It’s daft to put faith in any single study, especially ones that make you and your profession look good.…
Why Great Ideas Fail
I ran a session at FOO camp on Why Great Ideas Fail. The goal was to leave the room with…
How to ruin a design: the 9/11 Memorial
Update: After a great comment, I changed my opinion about this. I rarely use the word requirement – it’s…
Innovation by Death: A Theory
One point from the often referenced, but rarely read, Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn, is true revolutionary progress…
How to torture your project manager
If you like your project manager, this is a list of things not to do. Life as a PM…
SCRUM for Weddings?
I once wrote that Everything is Project, and its true. Recently Gregory Heller gave an ignite talk, at Seattle…