Ethos is not what you say you value, it’s what your system proves you believe.
Everything on this site reflects a consistent ethos: value delivery over activity, accountability over role-playing, system evolution over compliance, evidence over opinion. This ethos drives how we apply Scrum as a social technology, how we use Kanban as an observability pattern, and how we treat DevOps as a delivery enabler, not a toolchain.
Your principles emerge from ethos. So do your working agreements, your feedback loops, your definition of done, your deployment cadence, your response to failure, and your tolerance for nonsense. You can’t build a sustainable delivery system without it.
Ethos is what keeps your teams from falling back into habits that feel comfortable but deliver nothing. It holds the line when pressure mounts and shortcuts tempt. It’s the difference between agility that lasts and transformations that collapse into ceremony.
This site exists to support that ethos. Every method, recipe, principle, and workshop here is grounded in it. If you don’t share the ethos, the tools won’t work. If you do, the system will evolve, continuously, deliberately, and with integrity.
The strongest work on Ethos — ranked by substance, not recency. How this is ranked
Engineering as a Leadership System
Session recording from The Future of Work in Scotland. Why the frameworks your teams adopt cannot overcome the operating model your …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Detecting agile theatre with real delivery signals
Delivery is the only Measure of Progress in Scrum
Scrum teams must deliver working software to real users every Sprint; true progress is measured by delivery to production, not just by …
How My Father's Business Reverted to the Mean
My father died eight years ago today. In 1980 a leadership team's golf retreat left him holding a ten-year lease on a Glasgow shopfront, so …
Flow of Value vs Flow of Work – Misnomer or Useful Shorthand?
Compares “flow of value” and “flow of work” in Kanban, explaining why only validated outcomes count as value and stressing the need for …
What is Taylorism, and why Waterfall is just the tip of the iceberg!
Explores how Taylorism shaped modern management, leading to rigid hierarchies, bureaucracy, and dehumanising work practices that persist …
Rethinking Continuous Delivery: Why Best Practices Don't Exist in Complex Environments
Explores why fixed best practices don't suit complex continuous delivery, highlighting adaptive approaches like audience-based delivery, …
Special Sprints: Agile Banditry or Risk Management?
Explores why special sprints like Sprint Zero or hardening sprints undermine Agile by delaying work, increasing risk, and reducing …
Is Agile Really Just a Mindset?
Explores Agile as a disciplined system of delivery, emphasizing engineering excellence, CI/CD, observability, and system design over mindset …
Delivery is the only Measure of Progress in Scrum
Scrum teams must deliver working software to real users every Sprint; true progress is measured by delivery to production, not just by …
How My Father's Business Reverted to the Mean
My father died eight years ago today. In 1980 a leadership team's golf retreat left him holding a ten-year lease on a Glasgow shopfront, so …
Flow of Value vs Flow of Work – Misnomer or Useful Shorthand?
Compares “flow of value” and “flow of work” in Kanban, explaining why only validated outcomes count as value and stressing the need for …
Stop normalizing unprofessional behaviour in the name of agility
Highlights the importance of professionalism in agile teams, warning against excusing unprofessional behaviour as agility and stressing …
What is Taylorism, and why Waterfall is just the tip of the iceberg!
Explores how Taylorism shaped modern management, leading to rigid hierarchies, bureaucracy, and dehumanising work practices that persist …
Many organisations are lured to SAFe by the song of the Sirens
Explores how organisations adopt SAFe for agility but risk rigid bureaucracy, highlighting the need for genuine business evolution over …
Big Scrum: Are you doing mechanical Scrum
Explores the difference between mechanical and Professional Scrum, highlighting the importance of values, principles, and technical …
Engineering as a Leadership System
Session recording from The Future of Work in Scotland. Why the frameworks your teams adopt cannot overcome the operating model your …
Rethinking Continuous Delivery: Why Best Practices Don't Exist in Complex Environments
Explores why fixed best practices don't suit complex continuous delivery, highlighting adaptive approaches like audience-based delivery, …
Special Sprints: Agile Banditry or Risk Management?
Explores why special sprints like Sprint Zero or hardening sprints undermine Agile by delaying work, increasing risk, and reducing …
Why Your Definition of Done Is the Secret Weapon for Real Business Impact and Agile Growth
Transform your definition of done into a strategic advantage, deliver real value, reduce risk, and drive business impact with every sprint.
Is Your Engineering Culture Ready to Scale with Your Technology?
Explores why scaling technology alone isn’t enough, highlighting the need for engineering cultures that support collaboration, DevOps, and …
Balancing Speed and Stability: Why Quality Should Always Come First in Delivery Management
Explores why prioritising quality and stability over speed in delivery management leads to better long-term outcomes, even when facing tight …
Building a culture of Quality
Explores how fostering a culture of quality and engineering excellence across teams leads to better, safer products, highlighting the impact …
Unpacking the Scrum Master Role: Moving Beyond Misconceptions to True Accountability
Explores common misconceptions about Scrum Masters, clarifies their true accountabilities, and highlights the importance of principles, …
Agile is Not New: A Journey Back to the Basics
Explores Agile’s historical roots, the loss of human connection in business, the impact of competence gaps, and why a return to core Agile …
60 resources, newest first
What are some big red flags when hiring an agile consultant?
Key warning signs when hiring an agile consultant include lack of community involvement, weak core agile knowledge, and consultancies …
Transform Your Team with Flipped Learning: Unlocking Agility at Naked Agility Limited
Discover how flipped learning at Naked Agility Limited combines self-study and interactive workshops to build agile, people-first teams and …
Stop normalizing unprofessional behaviour in the name of agility
Highlights the importance of professionalism in agile teams, warning against excusing unprofessional behaviour as agility and stressing …
What is Taylorism, and why Waterfall is just the tip of the iceberg!
Explores how Taylorism shaped modern management, leading to rigid hierarchies, bureaucracy, and dehumanising work practices that persist …
Embracing Change: Why Agile Evolution is the Key to Thriving in a Rapidly Shifting World
Explores why continuous organisational evolution, not fixed transformations, is essential for adapting to rapid change, fostering agility, …
Beyond the Agile Illusion: Embracing True Agility in a World of Taylorism
Explores the difference between true agility and superficial agile practices, highlighting the impact of Taylorism and offering steps to …
Many organisations are lured to SAFe by the song of the Sirens
Explores how organisations adopt SAFe for agility but risk rigid bureaucracy, highlighting the need for genuine business evolution over …
Challenging the Tyranny of Taylorism: Embracing True Agility in the Workplace
Explores how outdated Taylorist management limits creativity and true agility, offering ways to spot and overcome ineffective agile …
Unmasking Agile: How to Spot Genuine Practices Amidst the Myths
Learn how to identify authentic agile practices, spot common myths, and understand cultural barriers that hinder true agility in modern …
Big Scrum: Are you doing mechanical Scrum
Explores the difference between mechanical and Professional Scrum, highlighting the importance of values, principles, and technical …