Why Iâm Writing Rachelâs Ramblings

TL;DRI have ideas. I havenât been writing them. Thatâs about to change. I promise⦠myself.

Iâve been thinking a lot about talent. Actually, Iâve been thinking a lot about thinking. And writing. Or more specifically, not writing. This really hit me earlier this year at the Future of Software conference. I was surrounded by people sharing their latest ideas and I had a slightly uncomfortable realization:

I have my own.

Not just opinions. Actual patterns. Hypotheses. Things Iâm seeing across clients, across teams, across the industry that feel new or at least not well articulated yet in a way that a leader can think about and act upon in some way that can influence how they strategise and plan for the future. Because helping clients and other leaders internal and external to thoughtworks do this is actually a big part of what I do and without letting my northern humbleness get in my own way, Iâm actually pretty good at it. If I wasnât I wouldnât be the global CTO of a future thinking tech org, you know the kind that has Martin Fowler as its Chief Scientist. A title I know he loves⦠Martin, by the way, is one of the people pushing me to do this, which is weird because on paper Iâm his boss but I donât believe in the traditional idea of a boss anyway. Iâm a strong believer in the servant leadership type but Iâll save that for when I write about that.

Anyway the point is for all the ideas I have and discussion I have I donât do a good job of writing it down. At best Iâll stick it in a presentation deck when Iâm forced to communicate with them in some forum or another. I hate decks and love writing so Iâm obviously doing something wrong.

So why havenât I been writing? Itâs easy to say Iâve been too busy. I donât have an easy job. Itâs a fun one but not easy. I also have two small children, 5 and 8. In case you are interested, I attempt to give as much time as possible to this busy job. And then I try to have a life. Iâm also writing an epic world building sci-fi fantasy book which is a huge passion project I may also share more about so I am definitely busy. But thatâs not actually the real reason I havenât been writing this down and pushing it out publicly. The real reasonsâ¦

• I overthink it.
• I move too fast to the next idea.
• Iâve convinced myself it needs to be more polished than it does.

So this is an experiment.

Rachelâs Ramblings is exactly what it sounds like. Fast, imperfect, thinking out loud. Naming ideas early rather than waiting until theyâre fully formed. Because the reality is, most of what I do day to day isnât answering known questions. Itâs spotting patterns and asking questions we havenât quite figured out yet.

My brain works a bit like a knowledge graph. Constant associations, constant pattern matching. Thatâs useful in conversations, in client work, in strategy.

Itâs less useful if it never gets written down.

So this is me fixing that.

Iâll write about:

• what is the future of software
• how software development is changing in the age of AI and what that means for engineers, leaders, and organizations
• how platforms, agents, and people actually work together
• and occasionally, how I manage the reality of doing this job with all the other things I have going on

Some of it will be wrong. Some of it will evolve. Thatâs the point.

If nothing else, this is a forcing function to turn thinking into something that exists outside my head.

Letâs see where it goes.