University Classes

We’re Looking for Partners for UW-Madison’s CS Capstone — Could That Be You?

Photo courtesy of UW-Madison

One of the things I’m most proud of during my career is creating and running UW-Madison’s Computer Sciences Capstone course (CS 620). Every semester, hundreds of computer science Seniors work in teams of four to six on real software projects for real organizations, using agile development practices. And every semester, I need great partner organizations to make it happen. Last year, we had 27 amazing partners and we’re looking to grow quite a bit to accommodate 40% more students for the 2026-2027 school year.

Conference Appearences

What I Learned at the Global Agility + Innovation Summit: AI, Judgement, and the Future of Leadership

Global Agility + Innovation Summit Logo

I just returned from the Global Agility + Innovation Summit, a one-day leadership conference in DC hosted by Sanjiv Augustine and his team at LitheSpeed. It was a day packed with sharp thinking, genuine conversation, and the kind of energy that only happens when a room full of practitioners who actually care about the work they’re doing get together. Here are some conference highlights.

Habits, Writing

There Is No Right Way to Be Brilliant: A Review of Daily Rituals by Mason Currey

Several clocks on the cover of Mason Currey's book "Daily Rituals"

I’m reading Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey, and I keep having the same thought over and over again, “Well, if they can do it that way, then anyone can”. The book profiles 161 creative minds from novelists, scientists, and painters, to philosophers, composers, and poets, documenting their daily working routines. And after one hundred pages of profiles, the takeaway I’m getting is that you can be brilliant in your own way, on your own schedule, with your own strange routines.

Intentional Living

When You Combine What You Love, Something Remarkable Happens

Gaming Hoopla

This past weekend, 580 people in Milwaukee did something that seems almost too simple to be true: they played board games for a weekend and raised over $46,000 for cancer care at Aurora Healthcare. I left the weekend thinking about how often we underestimate what happens when we stop treating our passions as separate from our purpose and start treating them as the same thing. When we combine what we love, extraordinary things happen.

Simplification

When Life Gets Overwhelming, I Organize Things For Stress Relief

Photo by Orgalux on Unsplash

To say we had a lot going on this week is an understatement. So yesterday, I did something that might sound counterintuitive when you’re drowning in life: I picked a drawer and got rid of everything in it I no longer wear. By the end of both sessions, I felt measurably better. This is not an accident. It turns out the science on this is pretty compelling. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, this is the article for you.

Product Discovery

AI Is Changing What Your Engineering Team Should Be Doing: Are You Taking Advantage of It?

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash

AI is giving engineers the gift of time. And most organizations are squandering it. Figuring out what to do with your organization’s newfound time is one of the most important strategic questions that engineering leaders and product teams need to be wrestling with right now. The answer, I’d argue, is discovery. Real, rigorous, customer-focused product discovery. And most teams are not doing nearly enough of it.