https://blog.maceage.com/tags/leadership/Recent content in Leadership on Maceage's BlogHugoen-au© Graham MaceMon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://blog.maceage.com/posts/2026/conways-law/Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://blog.maceage.com/posts/2026/conways-law/<p><small><i>(Originally drafted in July 2019 during my tenure at Xero. Republished here in October 2026 with updated context and removed proprietary references)</i></small></p> <blockquote> <p>&ldquo;A system is never the sum of its parts. It is the product of the interactions of its parts.&rdquo; — <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_L._Ackoff" target="_blank">Dr. Russell Ackoff</a></p> </blockquote> <p>Every sufficiently large software platform gives its users the impression that it&rsquo;s a single, unified thing running on unicorns and magic. In reality, it has always boiled down to software running on servers that is developed and managed by <em>people</em>. And those people - how they communicate, where they sit, who owns what - quietly shape the systems they build in ways they rarely notice.</p>https://blog.maceage.com/posts/2026/running-team-knowledge-surveys/Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://blog.maceage.com/posts/2026/running-team-knowledge-surveys/<p><small><i>(Originally drafted in October 2017 during my tenure at Xero. Republished here in September 2026 with updated context and removed proprietary references)</i></small></p> <p>Some domains are just plain complicated. I think it&rsquo;s safe to say that the most complicated domain I&rsquo;ve personally worked in during my career so far fits that bill.</p> <p>The combination of differing business rules, calculation methodologies, and the sheer number of edge cases baked into a mature system can cause your brain to fall out of your ears. This is without even starting to consider the various crazy-ass date maths that has to be performed in some parts of the system (and we all know how much developers love dates).</p>