I just had a contract sent to me with FINAL and a date in the file name. That's made my day. I can now be reassured that there won't be any amends.

Schrödinger's Postman Session

I published a guide and checklist for predictable projects recently. I’m aiming to do the same for awards entry guidance this week. Then a guide to useful stand-ups soon too. All places I see agencies needing support. Predictable projects guide here: harrybailey.com/predictable-...

The shift from client brief to shared plan is one of the most pivotal moments for both the project and the relationship. However well defined and clear the initial client brief is, unless you iterate on it together, you’re just a supplier.

Measured, good. Felt, bad. It’s a small part of the full video, but feeling something is not the same as being something.

2000: Everyone’s technical 2010: Everyone’s a designer 2025: Everyone’s a developer Sure sure. The difference though is experience and intent. If you don’t have the scars, or you don’t have the focus, it’s just tools, not craft.

Spent an hour debugging a remote database connection, then once I'd resolved it I came across my own article I wrote last time. Writing guidance and documentation is one thing. Ensuring it remains relevant, at the front and centre of ways of working is another.

I just found Keep The Meter Running, and I love it. Stories from New York taxi drivers. (You can watch them on the web without the app) www.tiktok.com/@keepthemete...

You wonder who might be reviewing the social posts, and if that process also involves forwarding the final post to a set of subscribers with a short grace period.

I’m giving a presentation tomorrow to a digital accountancy about spotting delivery challenges in an agency’s numbers. I wrote a blog post about it a while ago and I’ve expanded that based on people’s questions and interest. Should be good.

ChatGPT is amazing at coming up with clever solutions which have small caveats, but not sharing the caveats unless you ask.

I’m sat in the sun for the first time this year. Bacon sandwich in hand. Dog at my feet. Just off advisory and coaching calls with senior delivery leaders. Today is a good day.

Show me your Jira, and I shall list your dysfunctions.

I should write something focused on how I believe AI fits into agency delivery systems soon. I keep being asked about it, and I probably shouldn’t still be leading with ‘it depends’.

“I need an app” seems to be dying out. It used to be very very common. Now it’s more “I’ve built an app, and it needs a few changes” Which actually means “I’ve vibe coded an app and it needs lot of fixes, and possibly a rewrite.”

Claude isn’t the only Claude. Markets are confused. www.theexploit.co/articles/fre...

There's currently a £10,633,323.00 unclaimed National Lottery prize from 4th October. Claiming it expires 2nd April.

I’m not massively surprised by this. I wouldn’t rush to buy toys for kids that don’t have well defined interaction rules and limits. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

In a world where you can build anything you can imagine, increasingly quickly, why are we still obsessed about speed and not whether the things we build are actually useful?

It’s ProductTank Manchester tonight. Always nice to have a mooch around parts of the city centre before heading to the event.

ChatGPT is working hard to trip me up today.

"purpose driven" 🙄

For decades designers have been faced with how to handle stakeholders who think they can design. Along comes vibe coding, and developers finally have the same challenge.

I’ve never understood why new accounts on most free tools get pro features for x days. Surely giving pro tools until they’ve been used multiple times, then starting a countdown gets better results?

Had an issue with Notion. I asked ChatGPT and it gave me the wrong info. I asked Notion chatbot and it gave me the wrong info. I asked Notion human support and they gave me the wrong info. Plus the Notion docs page (for form controls) isn't accurate either. (╭ರ_•́)

As one of my closest friends told me many years ago, to be funny you only need to make one person laugh, and that person can absolutely be yourself.

About 50% of the time I type 'blue' in my browser search bar I submit it before it autocompletes to bsky and I get the search results on google for the 2000s band featuring Duncan, Lee, Simon and Antony. #oneLove

Package comparison charts that have endless features that are available on every package are evil.

I was having a chat today with an agency founder about their recent growth, and the signs they had a successful business. "I have a delivery model I can easily defend on a sales call" was one of theirs. Which I love.

Up to 10 team members. At least 15 minutes a day. Often 5 times a week. ~50 hours a month of (usually) unbillable time. The equivelent of a third of a person. There's clear business case for making every stand-up the best possible use of people's time.

Sprinting is a poorly named approach that encourages the wrong behaviours and expectations. Sprints are a short race of maximum effort. When participants reach the end, they don’t immediately line up again and do another sprint. … unlike in delivery teams.

Complexity needs a seat at the table whenever scope is being discussed.

Just spent an hour debugging javascript code. If I'd just viewed the source of the page instead of faffing with the dev console I would have seen the issue immediately. Newer shinier things aren't always better than simple old ways.

The ‘daily sync’ is an anti-pattern and all the information shared should be visible and usable in real time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The five ways agencies deliver projects. (warning: they're not all great choices) 🧵 1/10

Drafting an article called ‘Turning bad clients good’.

In the age of AI, I’ve just stopped bothering with websites that use that massively long cookie panel with consent AND legitimate interest options and no ‘decline all’ choice. Life is simply too short.

Agency accounting focuses on the quote and the internal costs, then jumps to the profit. Sometimes checking in at specific milestones to see how things line up. But the power is actually in where delivery and accounting overlap. Data from both sides can flag up issues early, stopping profit leaks.

People say Agile is a mindset, but there are actually 8 guidelines tucked away in the Agile manifesto. But is that enough to *do* Agile without a Framework? harrybailey.com/2024/05/agil...

Everybody is obsessed with 2 week sprints, but few know why. If you don’t know why, I highly recommend trying 1 week sprints first. It encourages: - Breaking work down, then breaking down more - delivering something early and very often - prioritising small valuable things - testing small things

“I could never be vegan, I love bacon too much.” - How about vegan + bacon then? The concept that it’s only worth doing a thing if it’s complete and finished is flawed. It’s the same in software. The value is rarely in 100% of the work, and the work is still valuable if you do some or most of it.

New grievance incoming. Software which is multi-lingual, but because it was created in the US it only offers English (US) and not English (UK, the birthplace of the English language) as an option. You can have 57 other languages, but you're stuck with color and aluminum and math.

Back in 2021 I made a bot that auto-tweeted #techbro job ads. It didn't consider #AI back then. Perhaps I need to update and bring it back* x.com/baddevjobs *Not to X obvs.

I have a test Android device. I bought it 5+ years ago. For the first time ever, I've managed to lock it, and of course I can't remember the pin. It's nothing I would normally consider. Currently on attempt 45 🙄 ... I'm not far off using the 'Find my' reset option.

Daily stand-ups are ultimately a risk reduction effort. But most don't actually reduce risk. I see lots of daily meetings drift into routine updates. Lots of talking. Very little alignment. A group of individuals. Three tweaks that help sharpen the daily event...

Delivery in agencies is like the kitchen in a restaurant or the stage in a theatre. Without it, it's all planning and promises. That's why I focus there, and not simply on operations.

The moment you say “they”, you’ve stopped being part of “us”. Describe other members of an organisation as 'they' sounds small. Just a word choice right? But it marks a boundary. 1/9 🧵

I just asked ChatGPT to do some data analysis on a relatively small dataset that I included in the first message. When it finally shared some results bacl, it hadn't used any data I'd provided and instead went off and found its own. Then it apologised and asked if I would like it doing properly.

Just spotted this macOS app that you drag images onto and it generates descriptions using AI. Sounds handy if you have a batch that needs drafting. eyedrop.ai

Agencies often build the wrong thing. And when it’s not wrong, it’s missing the important bits. You can meet almost any client where they are with one well-defined service. (1/3)