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The Value of "Disorganization", or Turbulent vs Laminar Development

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You know how, when you turn on the tap, the water initially comes out all nice and smooth and neat and transparent? And then as the flow increases, things start going a little wonky? This is the difference between Laminar  and Turbulent  flow, between water that is coming out neatly, all lined up, and in layers, vs water that is irregular, chaotic, and mixing with itself all over the place. And yeah, there is very definitely an analogy to be made with organizations here. Take Laminar flow. Smooth, well-running, oiled, process-oriented, "everything in place" - nice adjectives to associate with your organization, right? It makes sense after all, the last thing you want is chaos all over the place, with stuff constantly breaking, nobody knowing what's going on, seventeen different ways of doing things, and so on. And I'm not here to disagree with this - you actually  do  want these characteristics in most (if not all!) of your internal systems, processes, and services....
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Baseline aloo-matar (peas & potatoes)

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This is the absolute basic version of  aloo-matar, you can riff off of this in, oh, an infinity of ways (chill powder, fennel seeds, garlic, ginger, whatnot), but hey, you have to start somewhere , right? Peel and cut up 6 medium russet potatoes  into 2cm chunks. Add them to a pan with plenty of water, bring to a boil, and cook till they're basically done - you don't want them to be disintegrating though, stop before that stage. Meanwhile, toss  500gm frozen peas  in the microwave in a bowl, and cook with 2 tbsp water  for around 6 minutes till they are, well, cooked. Put  4 tbsp oil  to a pan on medium high heat, and add 2 tsp cumin seeds . Once they are sputtering, add in the potatoes, salt to taste , stir to coat the potatoes with the oil, and - and this is key! - don't stir for a bit, so that the bottom gets golden-brown. Stir a bit to flip the potatoes, and leave alone again - the intention is to get the potatoes to kinda get golden-brown-crunchy-...
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Cashew/Coconut Chicken

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This is an unctuous version of a baseline version of a chicken curry - the cashews and coconut milk add a level of creaminess and sweetness to the curry that harmonizes well with the rest of the spices. I've gotten to a place where I can pretty much whip this one up without really thinking too much about it, which is particularly helpful when I have to make a bunch of other things, and don't want to have to worry about (at least) this one.  Heat 2 tbsp oil  in a pan, and brown 4 chicken thighs  (bone-in, or otherwise). Once they are browned, move the thighs and liquid to a separate plate, and wipe off the pan. Now, heat 2 tbsp oil  in a pan on medium high heat, and add 1 tsp fennel seeds  and 1 tsp cumin seeds .  Wait till they start sputtering, and add in  1 medium onion diced , and 1 thai chili split down the middle .  Stir somewhat frequently till the onions are translucent/browned. Grind up   1 tsp coriander seeds and ...
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Pie Charts - Just Say No

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For those who have known me for a while, my antipathy towards pie-charts (and donut charts!) should be nothing new FWIW, it’s not something off the cuff - pie-charts are,  almost always  better off being replaced by something different (bar graphs being the obvious replacement). Why? Because Quantity is represented by angles and humans are   VERY   bad at identifying differences in angles (87 °   vs 82 ° ? Labeling slices ends up confusing stuff even more Small percentages (which might be important) get goofy Anything above 2-3 items in the pie chart are crazy difficult to figure out Don’t get me started on donut charts, that just take all of the above, and make it Even harder to deal with And it’s not just me, Stephen Few ( Perceptual Edg e. Think “grandmaster of all things Visualizaion”. Hell, he, literally, invented the  bullet graph …) wrote the definitive “ DO NOT USE PIE CHARTS ” article back in 2007. And yeah, if you don’t feel like reading the whole...
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The "Show That You're Doing Something" Gambit

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Many many   many   years ago - during the DotCom era - I was at a company that unicorn-ed overnight. Mind you, before the craziness, we were a   tiny  company, a handful of people at that. But then - DotCom bubble, websites, and   BOOM! , we were growing like mad. It was pretty awesome, I have to tell ya 🤗 At the time, I was young, full of beans, and pretty certain that the world revolved around me. And the hyper-growth certainly only served to accentuate this - after all, it was obvious that I had something to do with all of our success, right? Somewhere along the way, we brought in a couple of people who were, well, capable of doing what I was doing. And, what’s worse, they had been doing it for a lot longer, and at a much larger scale, than I was. Thing is, I  knew  that I was better, stronger, faster than them, I just needed some way of showing everybody that I was all that and a bag of chips. And I needed to do it  right damn now  becau...
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"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" ???

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It’s a pretty nifty saying, isn’t it? Unfortunately it only works for when You don’t understand how it works, and/or You’ve got too many other things to worry about. The problem, of course, is that  if you don’t understand how it works, how do you know it’s not broken?  Murphy’s law being what it is, you know that the break will reveal itself at the single most inopportune time, right? Ok, that’s not actually fair to Murphy. Broken parts tend to fail under stress, and fail disastrously at that. And stressful situations are typically the situations in which you need the largest amount of cognitive bandwidth to deal with the ongoing chaos, and the last thing you need is something (critical!) rupturing on you. So yeah,  of course , the break will reveal itself at the worst possible time. And that is kinda the point he re - if you don’t understand the mechanism, saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” ‘cos it  seems  to work is, quite possibly, the worst possible t...
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What Should The New Broom Actually Do?

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What’s your response when you’re handed stuff that somebody else did? Specifically, when you’re the New Person, brought in to clear up the mess — real or perceived! — that the Previous Administration created? Mind you, let’s get the “Everything Is Irretrievably F**ked Up” scenario out of the way. Oh yes, these situations do exist, but then again, unless you’re The Wolf (Pulp Fiction. Movie. 1994. Now I feel Old) this doesn’t apply to you. Odds are that you’ve been brought in to deal with a “mess”, (Hint: Not An Actual Mess). For any number of reasons, the existing system/structure/processes just didn’t cut it any more, and the Powers That Be decided that a change was necessary. And you’re that change. So  fine .  You’re the change.  And the million dollar question is — “ What do you do? ” Step 1 :  Blame The Previous Administration Th is is the single most common pattern out there (admit it, you’ve probably done this yourself!). And it’s an easy one too — after ...
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