Developer Tea Jonathan Cutrell

In today's episode, we talk about the counterintuitive process of prioritizing based on critical path. This is not a novel concept that I've invented, but rather a revisiting of the classic discussion started by Eli Goldratt in his book "The Goal", and later in his book "Critical Path", based on the theory of constraints.

The most common mistake for any manager is to fail to clarify. This often happens because we mistake our average communications for having perfect clarity, when in fact we most often don't communicate at high levels of clarity. This isn't because we are bad at communication, but rather because our social communications carry less consequence when they aren't precise.

Clarity is not simply being honest. We'll discuss the importance of clarity in this episode, and your first steps towards achieving clarity above the norm.

What does your culture have to do with your values? In this episode we open up the discussion about a model of thinking for culture and values to understand how they link, and more importantly, when they don't.

Your feedback loops should be short enough that the cost of making a mistake is low enough that the value of the learning in the feedback loop exceeds the magnitude of the cost of a mistake. In other words: shorten your feedback loops to the point that you're no longer afraid to make a mistake.

In this episode we discuss the importance of being your own advocate, and why this is likely the most rational position to hold. The takeaway: At any point, the person advocating the most for you is almost definitely YOU.

In this episode we discuss a practical application of information theory. Information theory is similar to the classic theory of communication, but distinct in important ways; these two theories together are a useful combo for creating a strategy for clarification.