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More Clarity, Less Noise
by Rick Pollick
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2026
9 minDORA Metrics in the Agentic Era: Why Deployment Frequency Stops Being a Signal
DORA metrics defined modern software delivery for a decade. With agentic AI shipping code on its own, deployment frequency and lead time can lie to you. Here is the new metric stack engineering leaders actually need.
11 minValuestream Episode 1: See It, Own It, Move It. Where Value Actually Flows in Modern Software Delivery
The launch episode of Valuestream. Nine senior people in a room, forty-five minutes blocked, one decision on the table, and nobody makes it. This is the quietest failure mode in modern delivery, and the three-word fix you can ship in a Google Sheet on Monday. Plus the operating model, platform engineering, and agentic AI layers that turn that one fix into real value flow. Full show notes, the framework, the data, and the Spotify embed.
9 minNot My Problem: A Decision Heatmap Talk from Product Camp Pittsburgh 2026
My Product Camp Pittsburgh 2026 talk on the three quiet failure modes of matrixed organizations, the Owner-Decision-Date framework that fixes them, and the one-page decision-aging heatmap you can implement in a Google Sheet on Monday. Full recap, the artifact, the impact chart, and the deck as PPTX and PDF.
13 minThe ADR Comeback: Anchoring Agentic Engineering Teams With Architecture Decision Records
Agentic coding tools are refactoring services that humans spent years getting right, and most of them have no memory of why the original design existed. Architecture Decision Records were a tidy idea when humans wrote all the code; they are now load-bearing infrastructure for any team where an AI agent touches production. A practical playbook for the ADR discipline, the new metrics that matter, and the three failure modes to avoid.
9 minMembersWhen to Burn the Plan: A Tactical Re-Baseline Playbook for Slipping Programs
Most project managers treat re-baselining as failure. The best ones treat it as the highest-value move available. A tactical playbook for when to call the reset, how to prepare the executive brief, the five-step conversation framework, and the new commitment statement template that holds. Includes three real-world cases and the post-meeting moves that turn a re-baseline into renewed credibility.
7 minFrom Gantt to Graph: Why Modern Project Management Demands Technical Fluency
Modern project management is bilingual. Read an architecture decision record, reason about an error budget, and trace a CI dependency, or get pattern matched to the steering committee. A practitioner's guide to the five technical artifacts every PM should know, the dependency-graph critical path, technical risk frameworks, and the trust contract that earns engineering's respect.
9 minStatus Reports That Lie: Three Signals That Predict Project Failure Before the Light Turns Red
By the time a program goes red, the failure has already shipped. Three leading signals - dependency latency, decision aging, and acceptance criteria entropy - flag trouble six weeks earlier than any RAG status.
6 minMembersWhy Platform Engineering Is Replacing Your DevOps Team
Gartner projects that 80% of software engineering organizations will establish dedicated platform teams by the end of 2026. That number was 45% just two years ago. If you lead a delivery organization and have not started thinking about platform engineering, you are already behind.I have spent the past year watching enterprise clients wrestle with this transition. The ones who get it right are not just renaming their DevOps teams. They are fundamentally rethinking how developer enablement works a