The agile manifesto is an excellent document that marks a generational shift from rigid development practices, to more lightweight, maker-centric principles. The idea was to restore balance balance and be less Dilbertesque. But the 2020s bring their own baggage that impedes knowledge work. And so, I explain why we need a new statement to reclaim balance for knowledge working teams.

Writing the book about “async-first” collaboration doesn’t mean that I’m immune to the status quo. I screwed up on my own rules recently, by taking a “sync-first” approach instead. And boy, did that hurt!

Many decisions execs take for their employees, ignore externalised costs. Mike Hopkins of Amazon claims their RTO policy has “no data” to back it. Lyft CEO, David Risher can only advocate for snacks in the office, while batting for RTO. Meanwhile, employees and other stakeholders pay for such decisions through costs to their health, productivity and happiness.

The async-first manifesto is a work-in-progress. This post explains the five values of the first draft. This should help everyone who wishes to help shape the draft, understand the initial thought process.

We pay too much attention to the idea of skill and talent. Often, time on task, trumps talent. Could this be the secret to doing excellent work, having a resilient career and building excellent teams? We explore that question in this article.

Teams needn’t be groups of BFFs. Trust and cohesion are far more important attributes. You don’t build trust and cohesion by accident though. Leaders must employ attentive design and intentional actions.

Workplace friendships have value for businesses, and arguably for employees as well. But it’s should also be perfectly OK, if employees wish to keep work and friendships separate.

Most tech companies want to run well-leveraged teams; i.e a few senior people and a bunch of junior people. But many of us lack the process discipline to do this well. How do you design a team environment that’s inclusive of junior people? That’s the million dollar question I address in this article.

The “CEO test” is when you ask yourself “Would I do that to my CEO?”. That can often help you spot behavioural anti-patterns you must correct, when interacting with your coworkers.

If you adopt asynchronous work, everyone should be able to work on a schedule that’s convenient to them. But that may not be the case from day one. You must first build your deep-work muscle.

Group chat can be both a helpful tool and a distraction in the workplace. While suitable for quick exchanges and simple information sharing, it falls short for more important discussions and tasks.

Advocates of in-person work often say they need to get their teams together for brainstorming sessions. This is a waste of time. The effectiveness of brainstorming is a corporate myth.

Want to be a better async worker? Check out this guide on how to read effectively and provide feedback. It's shorter than the writing guide, but just as helpful!

Can random acts of unsolicited kindness bring us together at work? Let’s find out in this post.

If writing is the number one remote working superpower, then we must all get better at it. Here’s how to level up your writing game.

Well intentioned, busy people want to be collaborative. But they often end up as bottlenecks. I argue that busy people must change their model of collaboration.

We often reach for training as a solution for behaviour change or skill development. But most training programs don’t achieve their objectives. How do you facilitate learning then?

We continue exploring the seven deadly sins of knowledge management in this week’s post. I explained three of them to you last week. Here are four more.

In a massively distributed world of work, effective knowledge management is a superpower for your people. On this site, we’re already discussed many things you must do, to foster knowledge sharing. This post is the first, in a two part series about things you shouldn’t do.

I recently went out for a mid-week retreat with colleagues on my new team and as a fortuitous coincidence, I was one of the event hosts. The experience brought back into view a few of my principles and practices when organising such an event. In today’s post, I want to share these thoughts with you.