Right. A ftiend of mine is trying to find a junior developer role in an EU country for a 19yo trans woman with an EU passport who has to escape abusive parents. She's at the "Writes her own operating system" level, so not your average 19yo.
Anyone hiring? Links to job specs or adverts appreciated.
How Could Anyone Run Out of Beer? (A Note on the World Cup and Culture)
https://createadaptablelife.com/2026/06/how-could-anyone-run-out-of-beer-a-note-on-the-world-cup-and-culture.html
#QuestionOfTheWeek #Culture
How to Diagnose the Bottlenecks In Your Team to Reduce Cycle Time, Part 2
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/agile/2026/06/how-to-diagnose-the-bottlenecks-in-your-team-to-reduce-cycle-time-part-2/
#CycleTime
Since we're heading into summer we finally got around to getting out an issue of our newsletter again!
https://mailchi.mp/e0f52cc4e0f1/quiet-stories-195
Including links to work from @johannarothman, @mdalgarno, Melissa Nightingale, Johnathan Nightingale, Hannah Beresford, @sarahdoody, and others
My June 2026 CAL newsletter: How Can We Assess Risks to Solve Both Today’s and Tomorrow’s Problems?
https://createadaptablelife.com/2026/06/how-can-we-assess-risks-to-solve-both-todays-and-tomorrows-problems.html
video: https://youtu.be/wMxThRN8Wr4
#risks #planning
My Weekly #WritingWIP: 2026.16 Continual Planning Book Description, First Draft
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2026/06/2026-16-continual-planning-book-description-first-draft/
video: https://youtu.be/PRP0Rf_TExY
#Planning
@adrianh I just blogged that individual-AI value stream map post. LMK if you want a direct link.
How to Use Value Stream Maps to See Where AI Creates Bottlenecks, Part 1
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2026/06/how-to-use-value-stream-maps-to-see-where-ai-creates-bottlenecks-part-1/
#AI #CycleTime
Yesterday, I kept seeing this story repeated about Stripe and the new AI model from Anthropic. The claim is the AI was able to do in one day what it would have taken months for the existing teams to do.
While that certainly does sound impressive, the conclusion we’re expected to come to is that this is only possible because of the new model, and honestly that fails the credibility test for me.
Consider this story when the right handpicked people completed in 3 hours, a piece of work estimated at 10-12 weeks.
https://blog.mikebowler.ca/2024/07/02/self-sufficient-teams/
Doesn’t that sound almost identical? Yet, it didn’t rely on magical tooling, it just needed us to undo some organizational dysfunction and to put the right people in the room to collaborate on the problem.
That story was from roughly ten years ago, well before any of the AI tools appeared on the scene.
I’m fairly confident that the new model is an impressive step up and I’m looking forward to trying it. Having said all of that, let’s apply some critical thinking to the headlines we keep repeating.
@adrianh Great minds, Adrian. Great minds.
I plan to do another value stream map series this week, showing how adding "AI" to any one person does not change a darn thing to the overall effectiveness.
The Effective Public Speaking Book is Available Everywhere!
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2026/06/the-effective-public-speaking-book-is-available-everywhere/
#Speaking #Marketing #Consulting
@adrianh Yes! I see this everywhere. What can we do to support more collaborative work? (I've been using value stream maps to show people "individual productivity" is a meaningless idea.)
A Wonderful Conversation About Consulting with Nigel Rawlins
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2026/06/a-wonderful-conversation-about-consulting-with-nigel-rawlins/
#Consulting
Successful Independent Consulting
https://pragprog.com/titles/d-jrsic/successful-independent-consulting/
@johannarothman
Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager
https://pragprog.com/titles/a-jsengman/become-an-effective-software-engineering-manager/
James Stanier
Effective Remote Work
https://pragprog.com/titles/jsrw/effective-remote-work/
James Stanier
How Can We Acknowledge and then Manage Our Inner Critic?
https://createadaptablelife.com/2026/06/how-can-we-acknowledge-and-then-manage-our-inner-critic.html
#QuestionOfTheWeek
My Weekly #WritingWIP: 2026.15. Long Plans Offer Less Value
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2026/06/2026-15-long-plans-offer-less-value/
video: https://youtu.be/BDz7K7ePjXk
#Planning
Consulting Tip 12: How to Use Value-Based Fees to Stop the "You're Too Expensive" Trap
https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2026/06/consulting-tip-12-how-to-use-value-based-fees-to-stop-the-youre-too-expensive-trap/
#Consulting #Fee
@nobsagile That means we *might* find productivity gains when a collaborative team mobs/pairs with an LLM to increase the speed to understanding and learning.
I am not discussing insights an LLM might make on any org's data. That's a different problem.
But productivity? Not if you focus on the individual. Always misguided.
/2 & done