Articles

Make a better decision about your software.

These are questions that come up before and during real software work. Each article takes one of them far enough to help you think through your own situation.

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Questions we help teams think through.

Choosing a solution

When is a new tool worth it?

Compare a tool with one real job, separate missing features from habits worth changing, and decide which parts are worth building and maintaining.

Checking progress

Is your software build making progress?

See what to ask a software team to demonstrate, how to test a milestone, and which unfinished work should be made visible before you approve it.

Trusting your information

Why won’t the records line up?

Trace conflicting records, choose a source everyone can trust, and test the exceptions before automating reports or handoffs.

Notes on building and leading software work.

Hunter Goram · Sep 2, 2026

Building software just got cheap. That's the problem.

Most companies about to build custom software shouldn't. Four questions tell you whether you're the exception, and a study of 219 projects shows what happens when you skip them.

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Ryan Clements · Jan 31, 2026

Breaking Initiatives Into Tasks That Actually Get Done

Vague tasks never end. Learn techniques to break initiatives into clear, trackable work that ships.

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Ryan Clements · Jan 24, 2026

Your Team Is Using AI Wrong

AI makes your team faster at creating problems. Here's how to fix it.

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Ryan Clements · Jan 16, 2026

Stop Assuming Alignment, Start Proving It

Projects fail when teams assume alignment. Define A, define B, and ship the diff between them.

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Ryan Clements · Jan 9, 2026

Stop Arguing With Engineers - Design Better Systems

Stop trying to change minds—change systems instead. Add friction to bad behaviors, remove it from good ones, and let incentives do the work.

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Hunter Goram · Dec 19, 2025

Next.js CMS: How to Choose a Headless CMS for Next.js (Sanity, Payload, and More)

Choosing a Next.js CMS? Compare Sanity, Payload, and major headless CMS options based on previews, workflows, hosting, and scaling.

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