# Reading List Picks of 2022 > Things I read about product management, agile software delivery, design, identity, class, the UK and other bits in 2022. > Last updated: 2022-12-30 ## Reading List Picks of 2022 Every year I put together one of these lists, of things I read that gave me ideas, crystallised my thinking or changed my mind. The tally of things I read dropped compared to previous years and I found myself hunting out articles based on need, rather than just working through my list of saved things. So there’s more on product management and digital delivery, fewer diverse topics than previous years. - [Product management & design](#product-management--design) - [Digital teams](#digital-teams) - [Internet ways of being](#internet-ways-of-being) - [Working in the open](#working-in-the-open) - [Divided Kingdom](#divided-kingdom) - [Just good pieces](#just-good-pieces) ## Product management & design ### Don’t confuse these 12 shortcuts with iteration Over the last 2 years I’ve been using the phrase ‘scope hammer’ a lot, which is when I’m looking to reduce the amount of effort we put in to building something, working down to the irreducible core. That’s because I’ve been working in [0-to-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_to_One) situations, getting something off the ground, when moving fast helps. These principles on iteration from GitLab are really helpful in not shaving off the wrong kinds of work. Read [Don’t confuse these 12 shortcuts with iteration](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/12/01/dont-confuse-these-twelve-shortcuts-with-iteration/), 6 mins ### How to be a trusted agitator When you become more senior in your role, you start interacting with the management and leadership layers of an organisation more. The way I work is like an agitator, or a catalyst, and the tactics that worked in teams don’t always suit the leaders. So I’m working on how to be a more trusted character. This piece from Laura Yarrow is a corker. Read [How to be a trusted agitator](https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2022/07/05/how-to-be-a-trusted-agitator/), 4 mins ### On Principles I’ve long thought that a good set of principles can carry you very far. Principles inspire action, help you make decisions, set boundaries and guide you. When I was head of product at a startup, I wrote a set of principles for the team, which were referred to often. James Boardwell has written about how he created some principles on a team at Ministry of Justice. Read [On Principles](https://technogoggles.com/2022/06/21/on-principles/), 3 mins ### Products deliver outputs, services deliver outcomes If you orient your work around meeting users’ needs and improving their experience, the semantic debate over what is a service and what is a product feels like a moot point. A product mindset and the tenets of user-centred service design are the same. But for organisations going through digital transformation and not fully understanding all the lingo, definitions can help. This definition from Tero Väänänen is really useful, and the diagram helped me explain our service to technology-minded stakeholders at NHS Digital. (I also like the idea of platforms as enabling services.) Read [Products deliver outputs, services deliver outcomes](https://medium.com/@teropsv/products-deliver-outputs-services-deliver-outcomes-845f964ba1ff), 7 mins ### 10 good design reads that aren’t written by white men Does what it says on the tin. Read [10 good design reads that aren’t written by white men](https://uxdesign.cc/10-good-design-reads-that-arent-written-by-white-men-58943255d04e), 10 mins ### List of inclusive design books A similar list from Benjy Stanton that’s all about doing design inclusively. Read [List of inclusive design books](https://www.benjystanton.co.uk/blog/list-of-inclusive-design-books/), 2 mins ### Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion This is a great, in-depth interview with Figma’s CEO. Their sale to Adobe is almost beside the point, or at least it doesn’t seem to be the focus of Dylan Field. He cares more about building a product to meet its vision and enabling an organisation around that. If you’re interested in product strategy, jobs-to-be-done as a lens for growth, and web standards at the heart of a product, I reckon you’ll get a kick out of this. Read [Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion](https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/8/23445821/figma-adobe-acquisition-design-vr-ai-meta), 53 mins ## Digital teams ### What Do We Know About Time Pressure in Software Development? Some times you’ll need to work to a strict deadline when shipping software. Launching an MVP, for example, or meeting a regulatory change. The problem with deadline-driven development is that it makes people think that deadlines are a good thing, that you’ll always ship great software when working under time pressure. This literature review shows how though time pressure _can_ be useful, it is negative in the long run. Read [What Do We Know About Time Pressure in Software Development?](https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/so/2021/05/09184214/1mLHZkBtQiI), 10 mins ### Shipping Great Work Being the first product manager at a startup basically means you’re the delivery manager too. Although I think I’ve got a really good grasp of the role and how to deliver software, there’s an added pressure when you’re doing all the product thinking, the design _and_ you’re looking after delivery. This was a great resource covering many of the activities that go in to shipping great software beyond adopting something like Scrum or Kanban. Read [Shipping Great Work](https://koolaidfactory.com/zines/shipping-great-work/), 30 mins ### How Big Tech Runs Tech Projects and the Curious Absence of Scrum Most teams I’ve worked on have used Scrum or Scrumban, and though it was all the rage over a decade ago, times have changed. At the startup I had the opportunity to weigh up different approaches, and this piece provided a really useful input, helping me see how other teams ship good software quickly. (Hot take: I think that mature digital teams in the public sector should drop Scrum.) Read [How Big Tech Runs Tech Projects and the Curious Absence of Scrum](https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/project-management-in-tech), 23 mins ### How to disappoint people The idea that ‘every project starts with a fixed amount of disappointment’ was a real mind-blown moment for me. Too often I’ve kidded myself into thinking we’ll pull it off. This is a more realistic framing, one that works particularly well on teams with low strategic autonomy. If you’re handed some ideas to build or very specific goals to reach, this set of posts from Neil Vass will likely be helpful. (The links go to the Web Archive as Neil’s site seems to be broken at the moment.) Read [part 1](https://neil-vass.com/how-to-disappoint-people-part-1/) (5 mins), [part 2](https://neil-vass.com/how-to-disappoint-people-part-2/) (6 mins) and [part 3](https://neil-vass.com/how-to-disappoint-people-part-3/) (11 mins) ### Levelling Up When You Can’t Get Headcount Startups and the British public sector faced similar problems this year: a reduction in the number of people they could hire. This post has some good tips on how to make progress when you’re in a hiring freeze. Read [Levelling Up When You Can’t Get Headcount](https://blog.designdept.co/leveling-up-when-you-cant-get-headcount-3deae1ad1656), 3 mins ## Internet ways of being ### lowercase magic This popped up in my RSS feed after I’d started experimenting with writing in lowercase on Twitter. It probably goes way overboard on the power of dropping conformity and perfection, but it was good to see how unshackling oneself had helped someone else. Read [lowercase magic](https://ungated.media/article/lowercase-magic/), 9 mins ### Workplace serendipity, invention, and lessons from Prohibition 1920-1933 Although I thought a lot of creating serendipity in 2020 and 2021, when I was working fully remote, I hadn’t thought much about it this year. Then Matt Webb comes out with this post about creating ‘water-cooler moments’ online, using the Prohibition as inspiration. Something to share with anyone thinking about hybrid working culture. Read [Workplace serendipity, invention, and lessons from Prohibition 1920-1933](https://interconnected.org/home/2022/03/14/saloons), 3 mins ### Complex Personhood This is all about how people’s lives aren’t as straightforward as they think. It’s about the culture wars, although it’s really about how that’s too simple a definition. What I took from it is that no matter how much you (or another person) try to define yourself, your personhood, things are much more complicated. Read [Complex Personhood](https://caterina.net/2022/09/19/complex-personhood/), 3 mins ### The old internet Oddly found this a couple of weeks before everyone started migrating from Twitter over to Mastodon. It talks about the old internet, how centralised services weren’t the norm, and is a call for people to create their own websites. Read [The old internet](https://rebeccatoh.co/the-old-internet/), 2 mins ## Working in the open ### Generating Agency Through Blogging A good piece on how blogging regularly can help you find better career prospects through networking, and generally have more agency in the work you do. Something I wholeheartedly support! Read [Generating Agency Through Blogging](https://tomcritchlow.com/2022/08/29/blogging-agency/), 4 mins ### Why we should work in the open This piece from the Co-op Digital blog, written by the excellent [Amy McNichol](https://twitter.com/AmyMcNichol), sums up 7 years of working in the open at the organisation. Most blog posts (including my own) give point-in-time reasonings for talking about your work, but this one condenses a long stint in the game. Read [Why we should work in the open](https://digitalblog.coop.co.uk/2022/10/19/why-we-should-work-in-the-open/), 6 mins ### Zombie Christmas One of the highlights of my RSS feed has been any new post from Russell, and this one is exciting. He’s going to be writing a book about sharing ideas in public, and points to some other people who do the same. (Might this inspire you to do the same?) Read [Zombie Christmas](https://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2022/10/zombie-christmas.html), 2 mins ## Divided Kingdom ### Wealth is the Missing Piece This is a North American piece about how wealth affords privilege to different groups. It’s interesting because it’s ostensibly about class, which isn’t something Americans really talk about, but it breaks it down very well. Read [Wealth is the Missing Piece](https://annehelen.substack.com/p/wealth-is-the-missing-piece), 22 mins ### Young People Are Lonelier Than Ever Alarming statistics from across the UK that young people are lacking human connection. Contains good links to services that can help you meet new people. Read [Young People Are Lonelier Than Ever](https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3n5aj/loneliness-epidemic-young-people), 7 mins ### Fleeing Twitter This article discusses the implications of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the potential increase in trolling and hate speech on the platform. It draws attention to the fact that the majority of people leaving or threatening to leave the platform are white liberals, contrasting with the fact that it will be disproportionately not white people who will bear the brunt of the toxicity. Read [Fleeing Twitter](https://momentum.medium.com/fleeing-twitter-the-twexodus-is-about-white-liberal-fragility-3631cb2ac317), 6 mins ### Britain’s winter of discontent is the inevitable result of austerity More excellent data journalism from John Burn-Murdoch. Reminds me of seeing a chart tracking the bank base rate over several decades in the UK and its impact on GDP. Memories of A-level macroeconomics. There is a distinct difference between the economic policies of the two main parties and its impact on our country. Read [Britain’s winter of discontent is the inevitable result of austerity](https://on.ft.com/3WOYNfW) (no paywall), 4 mins ## Just good pieces ### Dominic Cummings: “I don’t like parties” I find Dominic Cummings a fascinating character, so this rare interview is a chance to look inside his brain a bit. This came out before all the Conservative party turmoil in the summer, and he does point to Truss potentially getting in because Rishi had ruined himself. Not saying he can predict world events, but his concept of politics being totally ruined might not be far from the truth. Read [Dominic Cummings: “I don’t like parties”](https://unherd.com/2022/05/dominic-cummings-i-dont-like-parties/), 20 mins ### Inside the Pain Cave How to visualise discomfort and pain to work through it, while running or doing something else. This is an interview with Courtney Dauwalter, who’s a cool ultra-runner who pretty much came out of nowhere. Overnight ordinary superhero. Read [Inside the Pain Cave](https://www.theringer.com/sports/2022/8/30/23323367/courtney-dauwalter-ultra-running-marathon), 18 mins ### (Tele)pathy The little essays that Boot Boyz write to go with their new garms are great, they always teach me something or land me upon a new source. Super interesting reading. This one fired off all sorts of thoughts about Zen which [I wrote about](/2022/10/22/work-is-gambling-is-zen/). Read [(Tele)pathy](https://boot-boyz.biz/products/telepathy), 13 mins ### Dear male ego Amy Hupe’s a fantastic writer and I hope she’ll start writing about other topics, because this piece about perceiving the male ego as a woman, and its impact, was pretty powerful. Read [Dear male ego](https://amyhupe.co.uk/articles/dear-male-ego/), 5 mins ### Could Consciousness Be a Memory System? New Theory Says Yes Everything we perceive could actually be a memory. Mind-blowing new theory. Read [Could Consciousness Be a Memory System? New Theory Says Yes](https://singularityhub.com/2022/10/25/could-consciousness-be-a-memory-system-new-theory-says-yes/), 6 mins _Check out my reading lists from [2018](/2018/12/23/reading-list-picks-of-2018/), [2019](/2019/12/14/reading-list-picks-of-2019/), [2020](/2020/12/12/reading-list-picks-of-2020/) and [2021](/2021/12/16/reading-list-picks-of-2021/), [2024](/2024/12/24/reading-list-picks-of-2024/), and [2025](/2026/01/10/reading-list-picks-of-2025/)_ 30 December 2022 · [General](/tag/general) Related posts: [Reading List Picks of 2024](/2024/12/24/reading-list-picks-of-2024/), [Reading List Picks of 2021](/2021/12/16/reading-list-picks-of-2021/), [Reading List Picks of 2020](/2020/12/12/reading-list-picks-of-2020/) 5 replies, 17 reposts, 31 likes