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The AI boom feels a lot like the telecom bubble of the early 2000s — a race to build infrastructure faster than anyone can figure out how to monetize it. Investors like Michael Burry and industry insiders aren’t betting against AI itself; they’re betting against the unsustainable hype cycle surrounding it. Just like fiber-optic cable once outpaced demand, today’s AI valuations are outpacing real business value. The tech is real, the promise is real, but the process behind it

We see it everywhere. In school, a simple assignment becomes an epic because the deadline is far away. On Saturdays, three chores take all day. Fifteen chores before lunch, though, and suddenly we are a machine. Inside teams it looks the same. Years ago, we built monthly sales reports with clunky tools. Data dumps to Excel, formulas that would make a grown analyst cry, screenshots pasted into PowerPoint. It was slow, manual, and fragile. But we had a clear ritual. Billing fin

Rituals aren't the issue. It's rituals without results that matter. In this episode, we redesign stand-up meetings and status updates to drive work forward. Rotating facilitation highlights gaps, and a simple checklist for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays helps maintain standards while fostering innovation. We frame each meeting as a two-party agreement between management and creators, and discuss the importance of recognition.

Forget the meme that “this meeting could’ve been an email.” The real fix is an acknowledgement cycle: tiny Looms, one change at a time, a weekly “did you do the thing?” scoreboard, and pull-based habits over notification spam. Transport information and confirm that it has become a shared understanding.

When Six Sigma meets slide decks, the math stops working. Manufacturing aims for three defects per million; knowledge work hides a million invisible defects behind one perfect presentation. In this episode of Process Debt, Chris and Toby unpack why “good enough” varies by context, how to decide which processes need rigor, and how novelty and personality often disguise systemic inconsistency. Not every task needs five sigma, but every team needs to know where precision actuall

One year of weekly episodes taught us a simple law: process must be easy to find and easy to hand off. Most teams don’t drown in bad tools; they drown in invisible, un-transferable processes wrapped around good tools. Start with discoverable docs, involve operators early (try before you buy), and aim for sharp-shovel progress over perfect-axe fantasies. The absolute scale comes from people who turn ideas into repeatable practices others can use without you in the room.

Government shutdowns feel like any messy ops outage: routines skipped, incentives ignored, fallout everywhere. PUMP (Process, Unintended consequences, Money, Power) is a fast way to slow down blame, surface real constraints, and decide like adults, so you can restart the machine with less drama and more predictability.

In a factory, defects pile up in a visible scrap bin. In knowledge work, they hide, inside meetings, decks, and inboxes. This piece shows how to define a clear spec, make outputs countable, reward accuracy over theater, and keep a visible “defect bag” so you can spot rework, shorten decision cycles, and slash process debt.

“More communication” is usually a polite way of saying “I’m not aligned.” Cut the volume, sharpen the purpose, and give people a reliable form so the message can finally land.

The modern workday is a carnival of micro-distractions—and our meetings invite them. One tiny habit flips the script: assign a rotating scribe to capture purpose, decisions, and 1–3 actions. Pair it with real time-boxes and separate “connection” from decision time to turn rituals back into results.

AI can scaffold apps in minutes, but without software-style guardrails (branches, small commits, unit tests), “vibe coding” turns into vibe chaos. Steal developers’ rigor for business change: pilot locally, commit small, add checks, then merge. Small commits beat big vibes every time.

The birthday paradox fools our intuition, and so do bloated meetings. Complexity doesn’t need more bodies; it needs more clarity, tighter roles, and decision rights closer to the work.

Most of our mental replays feel like diligence, but they’re actually personal process debt—anxious loops with cost and no output. Play both sides, write by hand, separate what you own from what you observe, move your body, and timebox the replay. Clarity is kindness, especially inside your own head.

Decision quality doesn’t improve with more reps—it improves with perfect practice. Start by naming the constraint, making a prediction with a time horizon, and committing to a retro. One decision per leader per quarter can slash process debt and make strategy real.

Why do fixes feel “obvious” only after someone shows them? This episode unpacks the e-commerce “ship-from-wrong” story to reveal how surfacing the causal unit, separating infinity work from one-offs, and simplifying where updates live create clarity and drive adoption.

Enabling process is quiet on purpose. Start with a clear outcome, add crisp boundaries and local authority, and review the rope maze you’ve slowly built. When the “why” is solid, the process shrinks and the work finally moves.

Buying is easy to present; trying is how you ship real outcomes. This piece breaks down “try vs. buy,” how to spot and grow triers, why tiny experiments beat shiny decks, and the simple fixes (think box-fan energy) that slash process debt and compound results—especially when 2% of your org works on the business, not just in it.

A sore knee sent us spiraling into worst-case thinking—then a PT said, “You’re just tight.” Sound familiar at work? When handoffs creak or reports slip, we rush to replace systems instead of rehabbing the flow. In this episode we unpack the culture of buy vs. try: why shiny tools get credit, how soft-tissue fixes (handoffs, cycle time, rework) deliver real speed, and a five-step play to run “try” like a product launch. Stretch the work before you swap the joint.

We don’t have a balance problem—we have a prioritization problem. Pick three outcomes, protect white space, and pay down the principal on your personal process debt.

Culture is how work really happens when nobody’s looking. You can ship with perfect swimlanes and still sink if the behaviors underneath reward speed over honesty, heroics over ownership, or silence over clarity. Cultural debt is the invisible interest on those choices, tiny tells like re-announced timelines, leaders taking credit, and teams getting quiet, until the bill arrives. The fix isn’t slogans; it’s visible habits, built-in checks, explicit assumptions, and stories te