What I love about this is that you’re defending something that doesn’t show up on roadmaps: coherence under uncertainty.
I am writing about this through the lens of AI, not as a tool, but as something that scrambles structure and asks you to lead differently. And what I’ve seen is that clarity doesn’t come from focus. It comes from posture. Thinking with empathy, delegating what you don’t need to hold, and narrating just enough to catch what emerges.
….It will seem like I'm blundering about for a few more weeks, until I can say,
“I can see clearly now.”
The road to wisdom is rarely a straight path. Your meandering is very recognizable: and an (AI) journey that I’ve been on for many years. All the time alternation of small and large changes, ever faster, that leaves even the AI gurus of our time in a fog. When things are clearer for you in a few weeks, you know that in the next month it may be clouded by new patches of fog. Patches of fog make it hard to see the implications of the new possibilities in the landscape between the patches. They only distract and we see those as the new reality, like the shadows of the real world in Plato's cave analogy.
Maintain a distance to see the bigger picture of the patches (AI solutions) and the landscape (the world to which it is applied).
I've really been reading you since I discovered the beginnings of unfix. I am in charge of the transformation of an international company. And I like your remarks in your journey. The last one concerning the need to explore in a fluctuating moment challenged me. I made the same observation. On the other hand, we must not lose our way in what we want to do and that's why to direct my reflections, I have described a triangle of transformation which includes 3 primary colors:
Which I describe with the following slogan:
The future is not endured, it is built in a way that is
Resilient to be environmentally friendly
Collective, to benefit from the energy and ideas of this collective
Happy to disagree. Flow is not about stable environments. Flow can be about experimentation. Think about "time to learn". Yes, the WIP level might be higher for experiments than for projects. But who cares? Those are different sports. A higher WIP level does not mean that caring about WIP disappears.
Sorry, but no. A WIP level implies a constraint on work, no matter if the work is delivery or discovery. Yes, you can apply WIP levels to discovery/exploratory work, but that is not what I'm talking about here. When you apply a WIP level to exploration, you're still constraining. No constraints = no WIP level.
What I love about this is that you’re defending something that doesn’t show up on roadmaps: coherence under uncertainty.
I am writing about this through the lens of AI, not as a tool, but as something that scrambles structure and asks you to lead differently. And what I’ve seen is that clarity doesn’t come from focus. It comes from posture. Thinking with empathy, delegating what you don’t need to hold, and narrating just enough to catch what emerges.
….It will seem like I'm blundering about for a few more weeks, until I can say,
“I can see clearly now.”
The road to wisdom is rarely a straight path. Your meandering is very recognizable: and an (AI) journey that I’ve been on for many years. All the time alternation of small and large changes, ever faster, that leaves even the AI gurus of our time in a fog. When things are clearer for you in a few weeks, you know that in the next month it may be clouded by new patches of fog. Patches of fog make it hard to see the implications of the new possibilities in the landscape between the patches. They only distract and we see those as the new reality, like the shadows of the real world in Plato's cave analogy.
Maintain a distance to see the bigger picture of the patches (AI solutions) and the landscape (the world to which it is applied).
I've really been reading you since I discovered the beginnings of unfix. I am in charge of the transformation of an international company. And I like your remarks in your journey. The last one concerning the need to explore in a fluctuating moment challenged me. I made the same observation. On the other hand, we must not lose our way in what we want to do and that's why to direct my reflections, I have described a triangle of transformation which includes 3 primary colors:
Which I describe with the following slogan:
The future is not endured, it is built in a way that is
Resilient to be environmentally friendly
Collective, to benefit from the energy and ideas of this collective
Systemic, to apprehend the strength of the whole.
Have you read/listened to "Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters" by
Brian Klaas ?
May your meandering lead you to fantastic places... many with great coffee, of course...
I'm adding it to my wish list right now. Thanks!
Recent podcast: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2025/05/31/yanss-314-how-not-to-fall-prey-to-proportionality-bias-and-other-ways-to-form-a-healthy-relationship-with-chaos/
Exploration is less predictable than exploitation. By nature.
I agree to most what you said with a caveat.
- Can you achieve some order within disorder?
- Can you at least identify the things you want to learn? The things which not? Map ideas, learnings, emerging topics...
- Can you reflect at least 1 minute to check if your call was valuable or not, and why?
Perhaps this answer is not for you, but to myself. 😉
Happy to disagree. Flow is not about stable environments. Flow can be about experimentation. Think about "time to learn". Yes, the WIP level might be higher for experiments than for projects. But who cares? Those are different sports. A higher WIP level does not mean that caring about WIP disappears.
Sorry, but no. A WIP level implies a constraint on work, no matter if the work is delivery or discovery. Yes, you can apply WIP levels to discovery/exploratory work, but that is not what I'm talking about here. When you apply a WIP level to exploration, you're still constraining. No constraints = no WIP level.