Seph Coster

“When I trust you, I can use the story we agree on to predict your behavior and evaluate my possible actions, so that we can cooperate effectively. We are likely to come up with jointly designed plans that we can execute in tandem, and we can explain our common story to others so they can align with us too.”
― Douglas Squirrel, Agile Conversations: Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture

“The airy phantoms that flit before the distempered imaginations of some of its adversaries would quickly give place to the more substantial forms of dangers, real, certain, and formidable.”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution

“if our stories are fully aligned, you will never need to worry about me misunderstanding or undermining your efforts. With aligned stories, the founders will be able to involve developers in their prioritization discussions to keep goals realistic and achievable; the tech lead will discover that he doesn’t have all the answers and that team members can work with him to improve the structure and process more effectively; and the product manager will find that she can replace detailed specs with conversations with motivated developers.”
― Douglas Squirrel, Agile Conversations: Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture

“The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers