Jakob Wolman
Leadership lessons from the scouts
I’m a scout.
The art of process knowledge
The Ise Jingu is a complex of Shinto shrines close to the city of Ise in Japan. Parts of the complex are over 2000 years old, but still…
Empire of AI — a book review
I recently finished the book Empire of AI — Inside The Reckless Race For Total Domination by Karen Hao. Here are my notes and thoughts…
Consulting is different
Developing software as a consultancy is different from what most product companies experience. Tradeoffs, costs, revenue, and decisions…
Introducing friction
When things are too easy, it is no fun, coding with an AI included.
Reflections from cphdevfest 24
Attending cphdevfest was a blast. Here are a few of my takeaways, and recommendations of sessions you shouldn’t miss.
Tools for assessing teams
How analyzing and understanding a team's flow of work will help you ask better questions.
What use is a manager?
I’ve been asked repeatedly by senior engineers — what use is a manager to me?
Leadership is a skill
It is time we value leadership skills higher within tech and recognise that they can and should be trained.
Time management for mortals
Notes
Boring organizations are the best
We keep hearing stories about superhero developers, teams of rockstars, and dramatic problems that were solved last minute. These stories…
Becoming a manager
Putting on the high hat and stepping up on the stage
Reteaming — often
or how to build a great product while on a boat
Agile @ Storytel
Agile software development is by now a label getting pasted onto anything and everything. It is hard to know what it actually means and…
The art of possibility and self-leadership
One of the most powerful tools for leadership is self-leadership. Without it, leading a creative space is almost impossible. This post is…
Øredev 2019 — sharing knowledge
Øredev is a big, general software dev conference that takes place in Malmö, Sweden, in November every year for the past 15 years. In this…
Agile transformation happens in a team — not in a company
People don’t care which company they work for, they care which team they work in. Company visions, the acting of a CEO, company culture…
Addressing middle managers resistance to change
When working with a bigger organisational change — such as an Agile Transformation — the biggest resistance comes from middle managers.
Big and small bangs
Throughout my career I have always been a believer in making the shift to an agile mindset iteratively, in small batches. That means…
How to use me
I think it is important to take a moment checking up on yourself, figuring out how you are doing according to your own values. I recently…
The non secret formula
In a recent management meeting, we were planning future work. We were discussing where we should bet our efforts, and how we should…
Value of a message
I was recently in a meeting with a management group listening to a presentation. The presenter, another manager, was telling a message…
The management vortex
While observing a group of managers working something dawned on me.
Coaches coaching coaches
I recently caught myself having a coaching stance when working with a group of coaches. And after realizing my own shortcoming I started…
Best practices are the worst
Working as an agile coach I am often asked to present best practices. What is the best way to run a standup? What is the best way to create…
Learn to rest
Learn to rest — not to quit.
Takeaways from Øredev 2018
On November 19–21 I participated at Øredev, the prime dev conference held every year in Malmö, Sweden. Actually it was my 11th year at the…
New type of leadership
Over the years I have read plenty of books describing new ways of working. They are about a new, sometimes counter intuitive, paradigm…
Delivering value my first week
Great teams will focus on delivering value — fast. They deliver small chunks of value, often and with little overhead. I have seen software…
Research is an iterative process
Researchers have found that software developers become more productive when listening to banjo music.
Tools for distributed teams
As with any craft, you will do better with the right tools, while bad tools will slow you down and create frustration.
The myth of the everlasting team
Prescriptive agile models, such as Scrum, preach that a co-located, strong team will bring success. I believe this is an old paradigm. In a…
Working from elsewhere
Agile prescriptions, such as Scrum, keep preaching for co-located, strong teams that share a room and take on new work as the world around…
Innovation — but why, and how
Innovation is such a positive word. We can slap it onto almost anything, and make it look good. There is a magical mist around innovation…
Software is made by people, for people
Many years ago, when working as a consultant, wringing out lines of code, I came to this simple, but powerful realization. It changed the…
Building skills — on parental leave
When telling people that I will spend six to eight months away from work and become a stay-at-home-dad reactions were mixed. Many expressed…
Eyes on the prize — outcome over output
Lately I have been thinking about why so many software development teams are focused on creating new functionality in a product, but know…
Takeaways from my first design sprint
Last week I facilitated my first design sprint, with Tom Kealey as a sidekick. It was a textbook example of a sprint as described in The…
Innovation — create a space
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about innovation? Is it space travel, medicine and the Nobel prize? Is it new…
Hierarchies and networks in organizations
Inspired by John Kotter’s article Accelerate I am starting to realize that hierarchies and networks need to coexist in a large…
Why I share — tacit vs explicit knowledge
While reading The Connected Company by Dave Gray I came across Nonaka’s spiral of knowledge as presented in his book The Knowledge Creating…
Reinventing organizations
I recently read Reinventing organizations and was inspired. The book provides proof that self managing organizations exist and can be…
Gamifying knowledge sharing
Sharing knowledge is essential for an learning organization. We want to create an environment where knowledge and ideas are shared between…
Creative Leadership — a course at Kaospilot
After attending all three modules of the fantastic Creative Leadership course at Kaospilot I want to share what I learnt. An insight I have…