My wife asked me this the other evening: “What do you actually think about in all those hours when you ran the Dubai marathon?” It’s a simple question, but my answer wasn’t. Because it’s not one thing. It’s a whole ton of things. And those things change constantly as you adapt to different phases of...
Transformation gets a lot of attention – new systems, new platforms, new initiatives — it all creates a sense of progress. It’s visible, easy to explain, and gives people something concrete to point to. Simplification doesn’t work like that. From what I have seen, simplification is usually the harder problem — and the one that...
For a CTO delivering technology isn’t the hard part. Most organisations, given enough time and budget, will eventually implement systems, platforms, or tools. Where things fall short is what happens around that delivery — and how consistently it is carried through, how well it holds together over time, and whether the value actually remains intact....
“We live in a time when the institutions that run society are struggling to cope with the complexities of the real world, and so they retreat into simplified versions of it.” Adam Curtis, HyperNormalisation 2016 Complexity makes people nervous. And when institutions get overwhelmed, they don’t reach for transparency — they reach for control. Or...
I used to work with someone who had a saying that drove some colleagues mad. He’d ship early. Launch things that weren’t quite ready. Roll out tools that still had visible rough edges. And every time someone pushed back, he’d say: “Let’s fix forward.” At the time, it felt uncomfortable. Risky, even. People wanted the...
Daniel Kahneman’s research on System 1 and System 2 thinking helps explain why some workplace decisions — especially around technology like AI — feel rushed or oversimplified. His model shows that we don’t always think in one consistent way. Instead, we alternate between two systems: In busy work environments filled with deadlines and pressure, System...
“Every abandoned tool in your tech stack tells a story about a decision no one made” Most tech stacks aren’t pristine ecosystems. They’re haunted houses. Dig a little and you’ll find zombie applications no one uses, tools from vendors long forgotten, and shadow workflows left behind by employees who no longer work there. These aren’t...
We’ve got a group of students with us this week, shadowing different teams and working on a project about decision-making under uncertainty. After a few scenario discussions, one theme stood out: time pressure changes everything. That led me to reflect on something I’ve come to call forced time — when your natural pace of thinking...
Transforming procurement and supply chain operations requires more than just the right tools—it demands a clear strategy, strong leadership, and seamless execution. Hear from Adam Lalani, Chief Technology Officer, and Biju Raman, Procurement Director, at Alliad, on how YCP supported us in our Source-to-Pay (S2P) implementation and led a strategic procurement and supply chain optimization...
Explore how established enterprises can fall into the trap of their own success, using Barnes & Noble's response to the eBook revolution as a case study, and learn strategies to foster innovation and avoid disruption.
