AI
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The Value of Getting Closer to the Work
→: The Value of Getting Closer to the WorkScaling The core problem of scaling a team is that not everyone can know everything. Scaling is the work of systematizing that – so that things are understandable, knowable. It’s turning “tribal knowledge” into documentation, automation, and process. It used to be that only the automation was for the machine, but now documentation is machine…
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WordPress + Claude – a new look for cate.blog
→: WordPress + Claude – a new look for cate.blogIf you’re reading this on cate.blog, things look different. I’m pleased with how it came out. Getting there was more difficult than I expected. I came into this confident. I used to work on WordPress (admittedly, the mobile apps – but I did the support rotations and lived in P2 like everyone else). I have…
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Useful AI skills for Engineering Leaders
→: Useful AI skills for Engineering LeadersThe volume is up. More PRs, more pings, more incidents, more asks coming from more directions. I used to have 8 directs that dealt with most things, and organized and routed information to me for what I had to help them with, but since embarking on a new adventure, I’ve been rebuilding a different system…
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The Joy of Scope Creep
→: The Joy of Scope CreepI’m disciplined about scope. Ship the smallest thing that moves you forward. The feature you don’t build is the feature you don’t maintain. When I was running a team, holding the why was the job. Keeping us focused on the things that actually mattered, and away from the things that didn’t. In Navigating the AI…
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High Throughput, Low Completion
→: High Throughput, Low CompletionI have never been someone who organises things. I have a great memory and a high tolerance for ambiguity, and I evolved to match the era of the internet where searching things by keyword was sufficient. I documented, extensively. But I did not really organize. Not myself, nor – despite my job – other people.…
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Announcing: Navigating the AI Shift
→: Announcing: Navigating the AI ShiftFor a lot of people, AI started out as a net negative. You’re reviewing documents someone couldn’t be bothered to write themselves. You’re having your time wasted by PRs generated by someone who never tried to understand the problem. The efficiency gains everyone keeps talking about haven’t really shown up in your week – but…
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Who’s the Admin, Me or Claude?
→: Who’s the Admin, Me or Claude?There’s a lot of conversation right now about “context engineering” for dev work; structuring what you feed an LLM so it can do useful things. It’s fantastic, we use this approach for DRI Your Career – to the point where we moved our course development out of Google Docs and into GitHub. But – Jean…
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What Does Claude Need to Be My Social Media Manager?
→: What Does Claude Need to Be My Social Media Manager?I have a problem that I suspect others reading this share: my content is spread across too many places, and I have no coherent picture of what’s actually working. I post on Mastodon, Bluesky and LinkedIn. I write a weekly blog post. I have two newsletters — one monthly, one “when I leave somewhere.” I…
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Ground Decisions
→: Ground DecisionsPlanes don’t fly themselves – they just cruise themselves. Takeoff, landing, and the big decisions happen with humans. Same with AI. What are the ground decisions in the software factory era?