The highest-paid sportsman in the history of human civilisation was a Roman charioteer named Gaius Appuleius Diocles. He competed in 4,257 races, won 1,462 of them, and retired with 35,863,120 …
Gall’s Law: Why Your Transformation Programme Will Fail
John Gall was a paediatrician. Not an obvious source of management wisdom. But in 1975 he wrote something about complex systems that should be required reading for every executive who has ever …
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Brooks’ Law: Why Hiring Won’t Fix Your Delivery Problem
In 1975, Fred Brooks published The Mythical Man-Month. Fifty years later, it remains the most consistently ignored book in software engineering. Brooks’ Law: “Adding manpower to a late …
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Conway’s Law: Why Your Org Chart Is Your Product Architecture
In 1967, Mel Conway published a paper that nobody in management has read — but that explains more about why products fail than any product management framework I know. Conway’s Law: “Any …
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The Engineering Management Route in 2026: My Honest P.O.V.
Someone on my team asked me recently whether they should move into engineering management. Strong senior IC — technically excellent, good communicator, starting to feel the ceiling. Three years ago …
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The Real PM Test
David Pereira's take on the fake PM problem landed in my inbox last week, and one line has stayed with me: "If you removed the roadmap and the Jira board, would you still know what to do?" I've been …