Tessera

Spec driven development is more than using plan mode - brooker.co.za/blog/2026/04...

Spec Driven Development isn't Waterfall - Marc's Blog

Write down what you mean.

brooker.co.za

I can't recommend this article enough. This is the best example I've seen of both building empathy for how hard this AI moment is for 'pragmatic AI adopters' and also deliberately trying to work through it. commoncog.com/how-to-impro...

How to Improve at Sensemaking AI?

What we can learn from the disorienting changes hitting the software industry, and how we can use that to improve at sensemaking this uncertain new technology.

commoncog.com

Craft can be applied to anything, including the humble chart. www.eugenewei.com/blog/2017/11...

Remove the legend to become one — Remains of the Day

When I started my first job at Amazon.com, as the first analyst in the strategic planning department, I inherited the work of producing the Analytics Package. I capitalize the term because it was…

eugenewei.com

Another take on the many ways to use AI. I appreciate the autonomy framing over others I've seen. Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents: operator, collaborator, consultant, approver, and observer. knightcolumbia.org/content/leve...

Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents

A framework outlining levels of AI agent autonomy can be used to support the responsible deployment of AI agents

knightcolumbia.org

Another entry into our collective attempt to understand what AI is doing to software development. "think of “conductor” versus “orchestrator” as two ends of a spectrum of AI-assisted development, with many hybrid workflows in between." addyo.substack.com/p/conductors...

Conductors to Orchestrators: The Future of Agentic Coding

From micro-manager to macro-manager: coding's asynchronous future

addyo.substack.com

Ben Darfler @bdarfler.com · 2mo ago

Thank you, Jade, for dropping the post I had in my head this week. I'm not on team 50 direct reports, but post ZIRP we are certainly pushing beyond the 6-8 that felt comfortable before. www.rubick.com/span-of-cont...

How to think about span of control | Jade Rubick - Engineering Leadership

Understand the tradeoffs of team size and span of control for managers

rubick.com

"Acceptance reduces resistance; resistance fuels persistence." The way to move above the line more often is to accept all the times when you can't. conscious.is/blog/stop-tr...

Stop Trying to Be “Above the Line” - Conscious Leadership Group

If you’re reading this, you’re likely familiar with the Locating Yourself model. I love this it because it’s disarmingly simple and paradoxically, clinically precise. It points me to the organizing…

conscious.is

Ben Darfler @bdarfler.com · 2mo ago

"The next twenty years of observability are not going to be about prettier dashboards. They are going to be about what your trace structure says to a non-human reader at three in the morning" www.lastweekinaws.com/blog/reading...

Reading Observability Tools? That's a Robot's Job

Last Thursday Honeycomb was kind enough to hand me the closing keynote slot at O11yCon, a conference whose entire premise is that observability matters

lastweekinaws.com

Ben Darfler @bdarfler.com · 2mo ago

Some of the best teams I've been a part of have thrived because of the trust that was built through collaborative work. The more we dive into AI, the more I'm curious to see what collaborative practices emerge that we can pair with it. newsletter.kentbeck.com/p/trust-fact...

Trust Factory

“We’re accumulating code faster than we are accumulating trust.” Sometimes a phrase just hits.

newsletter.kentbeck.com

Ben Darfler @bdarfler.com · 3mo ago

You need to think about both: "Push communication ensures clarity and direction from leadership, aligning teams with the overarching goals. … Conversely, pull communication empowers team members to proactively seek information, driving bottom-up innovation." johnfarrier.com/push-pull-co...

Push/Pull Communication Development in Agile Teams

Explore push/pull communication in Agile teams. Learn to balance info flow for success. Dive in now for expert insights!

johnfarrier.com

Ben Darfler @bdarfler.com · 3mo ago

We are moving from one shots to collaborative workflows. "Explainability by design: Why AI needs to show its work in 2026" - Principle 1: Citations are the Currency of Trust - Principle 2: Designing for the Editor State - Principle 3: The Power of ‘I Don’t Know’ medium.com/design-bootc...

Explainability by design: Why AI needs to show its work in 2026

In eighth-grade math, getting the right answer wasn’t enough. If you couldn’t show the steps you took to get there, you didn’t get the…

medium.com

Ben Darfler @bdarfler.com · 3mo ago

Orgs serious about software quality must invest in: - Documentation that captures intent - Knowledge sharing practices that transfer mental models - Code review processes that evaluate theoretical consistency - Mentorship programs that develop theory-building skills cekrem.github.io/posts/progra...

Programming as Theory Building: Why Senior Developers Are More Valuable Than Ever

Peter Naur's 1985 theory of programming explains why experience matters more in the age of AI-generated code

cekrem.github.io

I appreciated the 7 practical suggestions that ground what can be a fluffy topic. packmind.com/generative-c...

Embracing generative culture: the foundation to building high performing teams - Packmind

Explore how generative culture boosts team performance and innovation.

packmind.com

I appreciated the set of patterns (very on brand for thoughtworks) • Knowledge Priming • Design-First Collaboration • Context Anchoring • Encoding Team Standards • Feedback Flywheel martinfowler.com/articles/red...

Patterns for Reducing Friction in AI-Assisted Development

A long-form article entitled: "Patterns for Reducing Friction in AI-Assisted Development"

martinfowler.com

I appreciated the terms "attended" and "unattended" parallelism as well as this observation: "The engineer’s job … [is] splitting into two distinct halves … building the environment … [and] managing the work" www.ignorance.ai/p/the-emergi...

The Emerging "Harness Engineering" Playbook

The converging best practices for building with coding agents, from OpenAI to Stripe to OpenClaw.

ignorance.ai

We are shifting from generating more code to verifying more code. john.regehr.org/writing/zero...

zero_dof_programming

John Regehr, March 26 2026.

john.regehr.org

I love where this ends: "The next level is humans directing agents to manage and improve the harness rather than doing it by hand." martinfowler.com/articles/exp...

Humans and Agents in Software Engineering Loops

Notes from my Thoughtworks colleagues on AI-assisted software delivery

martinfowler.com

Nice framing for giving agents more programmatic feedback and needing less human feedback. banay.me/dont-waste-y...

Don't waste your back pressure ·

Back pressure for agents You might notice a pattern in the most successful applications of agents over the last year. Projects that are able to setup structure around the agent itself, to provide it…

banay.me

Companies constantly overthink goals: "Goals are a communication tool. That’s it." mollyg.substack.com/p/six-rules-...

Six Rules for Designing Company Goals

Six rules for turning goal-setting from a spreadsheet exercise into an operating system.

mollyg.substack.com

Read past the title and stay for the leaning on Deming in an attempt to see around the AI corner. apenwarr.ca/log/20260316

Every layer of review makes you 10x slower

We’ve all heard of those network effect laws: the value of a network goes up with the square of the number of members. Or the cost of commun...

apenwarr.ca

Running multiple Claude Codes feels like managing a daycare with the constant nags of questions and approvals. It's exhausting. I can't wait for async closed loop agents to fully mature. At least for the rote work and toil.

I'm collecting perspectives on a vibrant software engineering practice for the AI future. I appreciate the thinkers who are finding a middle way between the hype and the doom. - aicoding.leaflet.pub/3mbrvhyye4k2e

Relocating Rigor - The Phoenix Architecture

The Discipline That Looks Like Recklessness

aicoding.leaflet.pub