Planning
Write issues people can act on, plan in cycles instead of deadlines, and keep work in flow.
Method
- Write issues, not ticketsA ticket is a request to be processed. An issue is a problem to be understood. The words you use change the work you do.
- Plan in cycles, not deadlinesDeadlines are predictions dressed as commitments. Cycles are a heartbeat. One creates anxiety; the other creates rhythm.
- Keep work in flow: WIP limitsStarting work is easy and feels productive. Finishing work is what ships. WIP limits force the difference.
- Roadmaps as living documentsA roadmap that never changes is a lie you agreed to tell. A roadmap that changes constantly without warning is noise. The craft is in between.
From the blog
- How to run OKRs that don't rot by week threeMost OKRs die quietly: written in a kickoff doc, copied into a slide, never updated again. The fix isn't a better template — it's putting the objective on the same schema as the work, so progress rolls up by itself and a stale number is impossible.
- OKRs vs KPIs: the goal is not the gaugeTeams confuse the goal they're chasing with the gauge that measures it, then wonder why their dashboard is full and their direction is empty. The difference, and why it matters.
- Forecast delivery dates without estimating a thingStory-point estimates are slow, contentious, and usually wrong. Probabilistic forecasting answers 'when will it ship?' with a confidence level — using only the completion data your team already produces.
- Cycle planning that survives realityMost sprint plans are fiction by Wednesday. How to plan cycles that bend instead of break — scoping for the interruptions you know are coming, not the ones you wish weren't.
- Cycle reviews: closing the loop on every sprintPlanning a cycle is the easy half. The review at the end — what shipped, what slipped, and why — is where teams actually get better. How to run a cycle review that changes the next plan instead of just narrating the last one.
- Sprint planning with AI: faster, and still yoursAI can draft the sprint in seconds, but the plan is still yours. How to use an agent to prep, scope, and forecast a sprint without losing the judgment calls.
- Capacity planning without the spreadsheet gymnasticsMost capacity planning is a spreadsheet that is wrong by Wednesday. Plan real capacity from live signals — availability, WIP, and throughput — not a guess.