Many effective leaders I’ve worked with have the uncanny knack for working on leverage problems. In some problem domains, the product management skillset is extraordinarily effective for identifying useful problems, but systems thinking is the most universally useful toolkit I’ve found.
Tools for better thinking
Collection of thinking tools and frameworks to help you solve problems, make decisions and understand systems.
The Systems Thinker
The Systems Thinker works to catalyze effective change by expanding the use of systems approaches. All articles are available free of charge in an effort to expose as wide of audience as possible. Browse, share with others, save your favorites and tell others about this valuable resource!
How to safely think in systems.
While there are a decent number of folks out there modeling systems, there’s a much larger group of folks who think of themselves as systems thinkers but utilize techniques like modeling rather casually (a polite way of saying that they don’t use them). Even with modeling tools available, I’ve often taken the shortcut of intuitive modeling, which over time has given me quite the education in making well-intentioned reasoning errors.
How to not screw up your product strategy | Jade Rubick - Engineering Leadership
An overview of common mistakes people make while developing a product strategy, tips for creating a successful strategy, and how to communicate and execute on a product strategy.
Summary: Thinking in Systems (by Donella H. Meadows)
The main argument of the book: Everything in this world is made of systems. While we cannot fully understand systems, we can observe them…
10x Devs Don't Exist, But 10x Organisations Do
How to make better software with systems-thinking
Bring a Product Manager Mindset to Your Next Engineering Job
The age of AI demands strong ideas, data driven methods, and experimentation
Work Smarter: The Cocktail of Simplicity, Manageable Adversity, and Muntzing
Sometimes deliberate roadblocks can be a good thing to get more efficient and effective products and workflow. Here's how.
A Systems Literacy Manifesto
In 1968, West Churchman wrote, “…there is a good deal of turmoil about the manner in which our society is run. …the citizen has begun to suspect that the people who make major decisions that affect our lives don’t know what they are doing.”[1] Churchman was writing at a time of growing concern about war, civil rights, and the environment. Almost fifty years later, these concerns remain, and we have more reason than ever “to suspect that the people who make major decisions that affect our lives don’t know what they are doing.” Examples abound.
How I Built A Task Management Tool For Almost Nothing
This is part two of my series on using AI tools to fight back against tech company control. Part one explained why we can get beyond just begging billionaires to fix our tools. This part shows exac…
Hello Systems by Loris Cro
Habits of High-Functioning Teams
I often struggle to explain what it means to be part of a high-functioning software team. Sure, there are mountains of literature, and an entire genre of LinkedIn thought leadership that professes all kinds of guidelines and heuristics about what makes teams work, but in my experience, it’s hard to internalize these ideas and follow someone else’s model if you’ve never seen what good looks like.
Modern software quality, or why I think using language models fo…
How to make better software with systems-thinking
Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
By Donella Meadows~ Folks who do systems analysis have a great belief in “leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything. This idea is not unique to systems analysis — […]
