by John Macdonald | Feb 7, 2026 | AI, Leadership, The250
It’s not, really, but some things are. Take a day in the 50’s (F). That feels cold in July, but warm in February. Push harder motivates if the team has headroom, but it’s destructive when the team is already drowning. The relative load of the individuals and the... by John Macdonald | Feb 6, 2026 | AI, The250
Now we’re at the point in software development where we have agents talking to agents to create code. One of the best use cases for agentic conversation is “the skeptic.” Here’s how that works. One agent writes code, and we pass that code to The Skeptic. The Skeptic... by John Macdonald | Feb 5, 2026 | AI, The250
If you’ve been doing something a long time, it can be hard to teach someone else. I can stop on ice skates, but I struggle to teach new skaters how to do it. For me, I just think it, and it happens. I’ve been skating for over 50 years. I can play Master of Puppets on... by John Macdonald | Feb 3, 2026 | AI, The250
The Peter Principle states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence. AI, especially Agentic AI and how it fits into the workforce, demands that you’re the boss. Whether you’re an individual contributor or already a boss, it’s time to move up... by John Macdonald | Feb 2, 2026 | AI, The250
If you were really good at starting fires, you were important to your village. But when matches and then lighters came along… If you were really good at remembering, you were important to your village. But when writing came along… If you were really good... by John Macdonald | Jan 30, 2026 | AI, The250
Evidence indicates that AI compresses the strata between workers’ skill sets. That means that AI is helping the bottom-level and middle-level skilled workers quite a lot to be better at what they do. But AI doesn’t help the top level very much. That...