Practices Articles
How to Decide What Gets a Yes When Everything Looks Promising
Every growing company eventually hits the moment where the opportunities in front of you outnumber the people and dollars behind you. And someone has to decide what gets a “yes.” I’ve been on both sides of that. In a past life, I had to make directional decisions in a fast-growing company without a great framework […]
Why I Evaluate IT Services Like Products on a Shelf
One way I look at IT is through a product lens. Evaluating each product or service provided as something you’d choose to buy from the store. Sometimes you have options, sometimes there’s only one solution available. This mindset stems from my time as a Product Manager at a digital services company, where I focused on […]
A Manager’s Guide to AI Adoption in Software Engineering Teams: Just Keep Prompting
AI tools for coding aren’t a nice-to-have anymore — they’re table stakes. At SEP, we recognized that early and gave engineering teams the green light to start using them, provided the tools met our security standards and our clients’. Once the green light was given, engineers across the organization were free to use AI in their work. The only stipulation: each […]
How AI, Design, and Creativity Landed Me 2 Weeks of ClusterTruck Lunches
Some contests are worth more than the prize, and this was one of them. Indy Design Week recently hosted a poster competition to help ClusterTruck revamp their promotional flyers for Dine to Donate events. The prize? Two weeks of free ClusterTruck lunches. The challenge? Taking a bland Illustrator template and transforming it into a design with bite. Spoiler alert: […]
Vibe Coding Is the Purest Form of Agile (And That’s the Problem)
Vibe coding absolutely nails the values of Agile, and quietly violates the mechanisms that make Agile work. Vibe coding might be the purest form of Agile we’ve ever seen. No standups, no tickets, no backlog grooming, just chaos and bliss. It nails the Agile values: working software, responding to change, and individuals over process. The […]
Why Vibe Coding Fails – and How Signal Coding Fixes It
AI is an amplifier for whatever signal we humans provide. Garbage in, garbage out. Signal in, software out. – Robert Herbig, in the thing you’re currently reading If you haven’t heard of vibe coding, it’s an interesting concept: you prompt an AI agent to do all the coding and focus on fast iterations. Minimize time from thought to working application. […]
Work Notebooks 101: Types, Best Practices, and Why You Need One
Keeping track of everything we do can feel like a challenge. Solving tough problems, making important design choices, picking up new skills—there’s so much happening every day. When it’s time for career conversations, it often feels tricky to recall all the wins and lessons from the past year. I have talked with a few folks […]
Terraform: Creatine for Your AI-Assistant
I love software engineering because it lets me create new things every single day. As a programmer, I get to conjure novel solutions to problems I’ve never encountered before – manipulating chaos is my jam. For months, I stubbornly resisted tools like Cursor, Cline and Windsurf. Why? Because I’m passionate about programming and worried these […]
A New Approach to Professional Growth: Personalized Learning Paths with Claude AI
Working with teams over the past 25 years, I have often been asked about where individuals should start on Professional Development. While I read a lot and know a good number of people that I can direct individuals to, I am always looking for better resources to help people. Recently, I was working with a […]
AgileIndy 2024 Recap: Learning, Networking, and SEP Insights + Jeff Patton Keynote Replay
We had a fantastic time at AgileIndy 2024! SEP was well-represented, with multiple speakers sharing their insights during the event, and we truly enjoyed the sessions. From engaging breakouts to networking opportunities, it was a great chance to connect and learn alongside fellow Agile practitioners. If you missed the event or want to rewatch your […]
Agile Indy 2024 Trip Report
From the AgileIndy site: AgileIndy is a user group devoted to raising awareness, acceptance, and support to people who explore and apply agile values, principles, and practices to make building software solutions more effective, humane, and sustainable. This year’s conference took place on Friday October 18th at 502 E Carmel Dr, Carmel, IN 46032. A […]
How to Make Bets That Pay Off: Effective Prototyping for Product Organizations
Many product organizations today face similar struggles: delivery cycles take longer than expected, timeframes are unpredictable, and schedules lead to unforeseen costs and outcomes. Often, designed, built, and delivered features go unused, ultimately failing to achieve the desired business results. We’ve seen these struggles appear when organizations pursue a solution without understanding critical assumptions about […]