Stand-ups
Twelve Thursday stand-ups: what to bring, the trick of the week, what happens in the room, and how you know it worked.
Week 10 has no trick. That is the point of week 10.
Welcome to calibration
Your rating is decided in a meeting you are not invited to. This week you find out what happens in that room, what your manager carries in with them, and who the room runs out of time for.
Week 1 · 25 February 2027
Rewarding A, hoping for B
Once a measure becomes a target it stops measuring anything. This week you find the measure your team is judged on and work out how to move it without doing anything.
Week 2 · 4 March 2027
Who speaks for you
Calibration is advocacy, and the people who argue for you are fixed by the org chart and by whom you nominate. This week you work out who speaks for you and who never will.
Week 3 · 11 March 2027
The self-review as fiction
The self-review is the one document you write that reaches the calibration room. This week you learn to write one that survives being summarised.
Week 4 · 18 March 2027
Traces
Work nobody saw did not happen. This week you learn where your manager's memory of your quarter actually comes from, and how to leave a trace in it.
Week 5 · 25 March 2027
Credit
"We shipped" and "I shipped" are rated differently. This week you learn who gets credited for a team's work, and why it is usually whoever wrote the email.
Week 6 · 1 April 2027
Promotion-driven development
New things get built and old things rot because launches get rewarded and maintenance does not. This week you plan a rebuild nobody needs.
Week 7 · 22 April 2027
Presence
Managers rate the appearance of work separately from the work, and the appearance is nearly free. This week you manufacture some, then catch yourself reading it in other people.
Week 8 · 29 April 2027
The reorg
Every trick so far assumed a stable org chart. This week the chart changes, your manager is new, and your brag document describes a team that no longer exists.
Week 9 · 6 May 2027
The layoff list
Layoffs are decided on a spreadsheet by function, cost and headcount target. No trick this week, because there is nothing on that spreadsheet a trick can reach.
Week 10 · 13 May 2027
The rat race
When everyone games the measure, the measure stops working and the whole team runs faster to stay in place. This week your group holds the course's own calibration meeting on the packets you were handed.
Week 11 · 20 May 2027
Now you're the manager
The last stand-up hands you the other side of the table. You bring a review system you designed, and the rest of the room spends the session trying to beat it.
Week 12 · 27 May 2027