Laurence Peter proposed his principle in 1969 as satire. Fifty-six years later, most organisations are still running on the exact system he was mocking. The Peter Principle: “In a hierarchy, …
Gall’s Law: Why Your Transformation Programme Will Fail
John Gall was a paediatrician. Not an obvious source of management wisdom. But in 1975 he wrote something about complex systems that should be required reading for every executive who has ever …
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Brooks’ Law: Why Hiring Won’t Fix Your Delivery Problem
In 1975, Fred Brooks published The Mythical Man-Month. Fifty years later, it remains the most consistently ignored book in software engineering. Brooks’ Law: “Adding manpower to a late …
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Goodhart’s Law: Why Your Metrics Are Lying to You
Charles Goodhart was a British economist. In 1975, he observed something about monetary policy that turned out to apply to almost everything in management. Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure …
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Conway’s Law: Why Your Org Chart Is Your Product Architecture
In 1967, Mel Conway published a paper that nobody in management has read — but that explains more about why products fail than any product management framework I know. Conway’s Law: “Any …
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Should You Build One? My Honest Criteria
Most posts about personal knowledge management end with an implicit sell: here is the system that changed my professional life, and you should build one too. This is not that post. After three months …
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