Why it's time to be imperative
It’s imperative that teams are using AI
I’m on a reading week next week, but I’ll be back in your inboxes soon. Be well.
It’s imperative that teams are using AI. Not because of what it can do. But also what it cannot.
AI is not a magic bullet. It doesn’t render developers obsolete. But it does drastically reshape and reframe their roles.
The good news is that frees them to do more of the important, consequential, and fun bits software development.
Less NPM package dependency hell (let the agent handle that) and more design, experimentation, and crafting software that is unique to your business and problem space.
The bad news is that this does force us out of our comfort zones. We must adopt a beginners mind once more, accept there is a lot to learn and more everyday, and stride forward.
And it cannot wait - we must begin today.
So if we’re all beginners once more, and it’s a time of crisis and urgency - it’s time for imperative leadership.
What might that look like when it comes to guiding teams AI capabilities?
The first is, you must be doing the work. Playing with the tools. Keeping up to date with developments. Thinking about what AI means for you and those you’re responsible for.
If you won’t do it, why would your teams?
Secondly, offer concrete suggestions. Suggest tools. Share articles. Make it clear this is something you’re personally committed to and want to figure out together.
Lastly, encourage experimentation. Set the criteria of success as not just what tools your team decides to use, but what doesn’t fit your use case, what you can rule out - because this means you can be clearer about a tool or approach that might actually be valuable.
When there’s so much hype and noise, knowing what you can rule out is more valuable than trying to figure out what exactly to focus on.
What could this look like practically?
Set up a dedicated AI channel to share tips, tricks and articles.
Get teams to suggest tools they’d like trial for a month. Parallelise trials to maximise the number of tools experimented with. Let them play around with them and report back at the end of each month.
I’ve shared this before, but there’s never been a better time to run a hack day. Not only will it give engineers the chance to try out AI tools they might be interested in, other functions of the business can get more involved than they ever could have before with vibe coding and automation apps. And if you have run one recently, don’t rest on your laurels - change is happening so fast you might want to consider doing them quarterly.
So don’t just declare AI intentions and leave the implementation details to the teams.
Be hands on. Be decisive. Be persistent.
Because getting AI right isn’t just important.
It’s imperative.
How are you helping your teams adapt to the new AI reality? Any other ideas that have been successful or, even better, have failed? Hit reply or leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your experiences.