Quote Of The Week

Quote of the Week 30 “ There are measures of focus and one of them is how often you say no.” ―   attributed to Steve Jobs See also: Quote of the Week 20 / 2023 "'No' is a complete sentence . " ― Anne Lamott Source:  dailyphilosopher on Instagram

2nd Quote of the Week 28 “ 'Vibe' stands for Very Incomplete, Brittle Experiment.” ― Julian Goldstahl Triggered by the response to Gary Marcus' tweet about 'vibe coding': Always thought "vibe" stands for Very Incomplete, Brittle Experiment. — Julian Goldstahl ack/me (@JulianGoldstahl) July 8, 2025

Quote of the Week 12 " Business outcomes measure the health of the business. Product outcomes measure a change in customer behavior. " ― Teresa Torres Triggered by a discussion of how to align product development goals with business goals in the context of an OKR initiative. My take which is  influenced by T. Torres and others including M. Cagan and T. Herbig :  In the triangle of "business", "customer", and "product", do not try to directly derive the product objectives from the [internal] business objectives, instead look at the [external] business impact for the customer first. See also " What’s the Difference Between OKRs and Outcomes? " by Teresa Torres: "Product teams don’t typically have direct influence over business metrics like increasing revenue. But they do have the ability to directly influence product outcomes—changes in customer behavior—that can ultimately contribute to business outcomes." As Melissa Suzuno st...

Quote of the Week 9 "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." ― C. Northcote Parkinson ( Parkinson's Law ) Triggered by the reference in a recent blog post  on Google's decline by Stephen E. Arnold. [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 4 "W hat makes great products: it is not process; it is content. " ― Steve Jobs Triggered by the content of the video clip in Marty Cagan's " Master Class " presentation @ 19:25 minutes. See also: Cited by many including Max Pucher : "You know what it is? People get confused. Companies get confused. When they start getting bigger they want to replicate their original success. And they start to think that somehow there is some magic in the process of how that success was created. So they start to try to institutionalize the process across the company. And before very long people get very confused and think that the process is the content. That was ultimately the downfall of IBM. IBM has the best process people in the world; they just forgot about the content. And that’s what happened a little bit at Apple, too. We had a lot of people who were great at management process; they just didn’t have a clue as to the content. And in my career I fo...

Quote of the Week 49 " A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good . " ― Martin LeBlanc Triggered by the use of an app that should remain unnamed: A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good. — Martin LeBlanc (@martinleblanc) May 14, 2014 [ LinkedIn ] 

Quote of the Week 47 " Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later . " ― Fred Brooks  ( Brooks's Law ) Frederick P. Brooks, the author of the renowned book " T he Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering " that introduces this law, passed away last week (November 17, 2022) at the age of 91. [ LinkedIn ]

Quote of the Week 45 " Anything lost can be found again, except time wasted. " ― Kevin Gates Triggered by the use of the quote  ―  from " Wish I Had It " song lyrics by  Kevin Gates   ―   in a comment to a post on LinkedIn by Corporate Rebels . Anything lost can be found again Except time wasted     A vision without action Is merely a dream Action is the pride It the hustle It's the persistence   ... See also related quotes by Peter Drucker and  Henry Ford . [ LinkedIn ]  

  Quote of the Week 39 " Agile now means, we do half of Scrum poorly and use Jira. " ―  Andy Hunt   Triggered by the use of the quote in  Agile & Scrum Don't Work | Allen Holub In The Engineering Room Ep. 9 .

Quote of the Week 32 " A goal without a method is cruel. " ― W.E. Deming Triggered by the use of the quote in Bryan Finster's 2021 " How to Misuse DORA DevOps Metrics " presentation. (See also my  blog article on the topic). From Deming's 5 Rules of Management : 1. Put fun back into work. “The prevailing system of management has crushed fun out of the workplace.” 2. Give people a reason to come to work. “We are here to make another world.” 3. Don’t leave people hanging. “A goal without a method is cruel.” 4. Push responsibility down the line. “Quality is everyone's responsibility.” 5. Encourage and celebrate innovation. “Innovation comes from the producer - not from the customer.”

Quote of the Week 15 " Good artists copy. Great artists steal." ― Misattributed to Pablo Picasso Source: Quote Investigator

Quote of the Week 12 " There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. " ― Peter Drucker Triggered by the use of the quote in a review of the book " Ask Your Developer " by Jeff Lawson. In line with a quote cited here before: " What's not worth doing is not worth doing well. " ―  Abraham Maslow

Quote of the Week 8 "50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work." ― Price's Square Root Law (adapted) Triggered by Brian Burns ' use of the law in the context of sales organizations. Note that  Price 's well-known square root law originally states that "half of the literature on a subject will be contributed by the square root of the total number of authors publishing in that area". ( Price's square root law: Empirical validity and relation to Lotka's law - ScienceDirect ) One should be careful applying the law to different organizational contexts. It  does not necessarily apply to performance management in general. ( Kienbaum Blog - Price’s Law and the Trouble of Operationalizing Performance ) See also:  Price's Law: What It Is And Why You Should Care - Darius Foroux

Quote of the Week 49 " Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born. " ―  Nikola Tesla Cited here in context: " The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born."

Quote of the Week 34 " What's not worth doing is not worth doing well. " ―  Abraham Maslow Triggered by Scott Barry Kaufman's tweet in the context of the promotion of his book " Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization " on a podcast with Jordan B. Peterson. Originally stated in Maslow's book " Maslow on Management " (original title: " Eupsychian Management ") and later referenced in the book  " The Maslow Business Reader " (pg. 17). The complementary statement to the strive for effectiveness and efficiency to be productive : " Do the right things and do them right. " Spending time and resources on the wrong thing is just a waste.  See also: Source:  " Avoid Doing the Wrong things Righter… But, “By What Method?” ".