J
John Cutler
cutlefish.substack.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2021
John Cutler writes on product management, prioritization, team focus and how organizations make decisions.
What HN saysThe only comment is a product pitch for Kitemaker, so HN gives no opinion of the blog; it is linked in product-tool discussions.
35HN people shared it
1linked it in comments
78stories submitted
965story points
3 months agolast shared
2021people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1First Focus. Then Simplify3 people · 5 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 2TBM 245: The Magic Prioritization Trick3 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 3The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists2 people · 295 points · first shared 2024 · 247 comments on HN
- 4We need someone who has done “it” before2 people · 248 points · first shared 2022 · 174 comments on HN
- 5The Bottleneck Strikes Again2 people · 4 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 6How Capable Leaders Navigate Uncertainty and Ambiguity2 people · 4 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 7Product Manage Your Meetings2 people · 3 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 8TBM 25/53: Persistent Models vs. Point-in-Time Goals2 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 9Seeing Everything, Understanding Nothing (The Context Trap)2 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 10TBM 17/52: Decision Making vs. Decision Understanding2 people · 2 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
- 11Why don’t we have a strategy?1 people · 172 points · first shared 2022 · 119 comments on HN
- 12Why Most Strategies Lack Clarity1 people · 43 points · first shared 2022 · 11 comments on HN
- 13We Kind of Suck at That Right Now1 people · 37 points · first shared 2025 · 40 comments on HN
- 14TBM 333: Lean Graph Theory1 people · 27 points · first shared 2025 · 5 comments on HN
- 15TBM 377: Time Allocation ≠ Capacity Allocation1 people · 19 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
doix · 2022-06-24
I'm going to shill for my current employer, you should checkout Kitemaker[0]. The unique shtick is that our 'issues' are large collaborative documents (we call them work items) and are meant to track deliverables rather than development tasks. The idea is that a work item is created as soon as someone has an idea and all the exploratory work happens in the work item.
So it could start with someone writing down how a feature should work, then some designers creating some mock ups based on the discussion. Finally programmers can look at the description and the Figma designs and start implementing, with all the context still available. And since the document is created from the start, the entire team can start commenting throughout the whole process rather than at the very end when the jira ticket is created. It helps avoid stuff like this[1].
I obviously like it, but I am biased :).
[0] https://kitemaker.co
[1] https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-1052-what-didnt-end-up-in-jira