Between Backlog and Enlightenment

Kanban, change and the realities of work life.

1. 30. Mar 2026

   Beyond Observation

   When observation destroys the very data it tries to collect, how do you evaluate your people? The illusion of control cannot be maintained with attendance tracking or Jira surveillance. It requires dropping heavy anchors into the organization: asynchronous artifact reviews, protected peer feedback, and a ruthless decoupling of salary from the operational flow. This is the blueprint for navigating modern performance management: measuring engineering impact, crushing the illusion of staged obedience.

   • beyond observation
   • organizational design
   • performance appraisal
   • ROWE
   • self-determination theory
   • 360-degree feedback
   • agile metrics
   • hawthorne effect
   • deming
   • goodharts law
2. 23. Mar 2026

   The Utilization Fetish

   Executives panic at the sight of idle time. They schedule knowledge work like a physical assembly line. The result is Corporate Thrashing. Optimizing teams for 100 percent utilization only maximizes cognitive setup costs and wait times. Here is the raw physical reality behind your collapsing release cycles.

   • organizational design
   • utilization
   • little's law
   • kingman formula
   • corporate thrashing
   • context switching
   • wip limits
   • kanban
   • portfolio management
   • operations research
3. 16. Mar 2026

   Soft Skills, Hard Numbers

   Executives often dismiss psychological safety as a feel-good initiative. But hiding mistakes and silencing concerns costs real money. Here is the hard financial math behind structurally overloaded hierarchies.

   • psychological safety
   • organizational design
   • ROI
   • cost of change
   • turnover
   • agile transformation
   • leadership
   • corporate culture
   • quiet quitting
   • ouch ratio
   • hidden ledger of psychological safety
4. 10. Mar 2026

   The Uncomfortable Math of Psychological Safety

   We ask our People Leads to perform a mathematical and psychological miracle. Building trust takes roughly 1.5 hours per employee per week. With large spans of control, this expectation structurally collapses.

   • psychological safety
   • organizational design
   • span of control
   • people management
   • dunbar number
   • lateral leadership
   • agile coaching
   • cognitive load
   • team dynamics
5. 03. Mar 2026

   Why Your Hierarchy Kills Psychological Safety

   You cannot easily have psychological safety when the person coaching you through your mistakes is the same person who decides if you can pay your mortgage. It is a massive structural conflict of interest.

   • psychological safety
   • organizational design
   • split leadership
   • organizational psychology
   • leadership structures
   • team dynamics
   • corporate culture
   • agile transformation
   • quiet quitting