SEND EXCEPTION. JAMIE ALREADY HAS ENVIRONMENT.
People still contact me about buildings I no longer work in.
Read article →Field notes · practical systems
Articles from the operating system
Long-form notes about operations, constraints, software, people, and the systems that connect them.
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THE WAREHOUSE IS A COMPUTER
The first time software architecture really clicked for me, it did not feel like learning an entirely new discipline.
Read article →FROM AN IDEA TO THREE-DAY DELIVERY
When I first started working with Amazon sellers, a lot of the people I was helping already knew how to run a business.
Read article →A FEELING IS A HYPOTHESIS, NOT AN AUTHORIZATION
I have always trusted intuition.
Read article →THE GURU PROBLEM
One of the reasons I became deeply skeptical of Amazon “secrets†was that I had seen too many of them from both sides of the glass.
Read article →THE PACKAGE COMPLETED THE LOOP
I started at Amazon helping sellers put things into the machine.
Read article →TOMBSTONED article
I found an old training slide I made years ago.
Read article →FROM FOUR CPTs TO TWENTY-ONE
How a handwritten chase list became a very different operating system
Read article →THE BUILDING RAN OUT OF DOCK DOORS
What BDL4 taught me about capacity, choreography, and why a local optimization can become a network problem
Read article →OPERATION BIG PUSH
When a group of sellers stopped waiting for the supply chain to fix itself
Read article →THE APP I BUILT FOR ONE PERSON WHO COULDN'T READ
How one employee, one interface barrier, and one useful design decision grew into a larger operating principle
Read article →THE SPREADSHEET THAT BECAME A CONTROL ROOM
Why an operating view should help run the work, not merely report on it
Read article →THE PROMPT IS PART OF THE PRODUCTION SYSTEM
What a 1,200-file website taught me about managing AI agents like operators
Read article →THE FIRST TIME I SAW C, I ALREADY KNEW THE MACHINE
My career looks haphazard when reduced to nouns: computers, seller coaching, e-commerce, sourcing, product development, manufacturing, construction, engineering, inventory, pick, conveyance, ship dock, transportation,...
Read article →ONE MISSING PERSON IS NOT ONE MISSING PERSON OF CAPACITY
A labor plan can make humans look beautifully interchangeable. Twenty people scheduled, one absent, nineteen remain, therefore capacity fell five percent. The arithmetic is clean. The operation often is not.
Read article →THE CONSTRAINT MOVED, SO I FOLLOWED IT
One of the strangest things about improving a system is that success creates new problems. Make one process faster and the next receives more work. Remove one queue and downstream loses a buffer. Increase outbound thr...
Read article →THE HOUSE FULL OF INVENTORY WAS NOT A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION
There are photographs from the Muffik years that can make the entire business look ridiculous if you remove the context: boxes, garages, storage, U-Hauls, pallets and product occupying spaces that were not designed as...
Read article →THE PRODUCT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR ORG CHART
There is a sentence that can quietly kill an operating system: “That's not ours.â€
Read article →A FEELING IS A HYPOTHESIS, NOT AN AUTHORIZATION
One operations manager to another
Read article →THE BUILDING WASN'T AS DIFFERENT AS IT LOOKED
One operations manager to another about walking into a site you do not know
Read article →THE FIRST JOB WASN'T SELLING. IT WAS BUILDING THE COMPANY.
One business owner to another about bringing Muffik to the United States
Read article →THE HOUSE WAS A PRODUCT LAB, AND THE KIDS WERE BRUTAL
One business owner to another about product development before anybody calls it “consumer researchâ€
Read article →I REMEMBER BUILDINGS IN TRUCKLOADS
Wild card: written to one of my adult children opening an old box of plans after I am gone
Read article →THE CAREER DECISION WHOSE ROI WAS TIME WITH MY KIDS
Why I turned down a bigger career path without believing I made the wrong decision
Read article →THE HOUSE WHERE EVERYBODY CAME OVER
What our family looked like when the operating system was food, noise, football, Halloween and an unreasonable number of people
Read article →THE WHISTLE-STOP PLANS
How I learned to hold several buildings at once without pretending they were the same building
Read article →WHEN A BUILDING BECOMES A NETWORK PROBLEM
Why making one operation better can make the larger system worse
Read article →THE BLACK HOLE PROBLEM
What happens when a career built around living systems suddenly has to invent its own gravity
Read article →A RÉSUMÉ IS A TERRIBLE CONTAINER FOR A SYSTEMS CAREER
Why the bullet point kept deleting the part of the story that mattered
Read article →THE 16,000-UNIT BUILDING THAT DID 60,000
What capacity actually means when the physical building does not change
Read article →2,000 PEOPLE ON A WAITLIST FOR AN INTERNAL OPERATIONS TOOL
Why people do not line up for dashboards unless the existing work hurts
Read article →CODING IS NOT THE JOB; BUILDING THE SYSTEM IS
Why the conveyor, the fulfillment center and the software all look like the same problem to me
Read article →THE CRUMPLED PIECE OF PAPER THAT TAUGHT ME TO RUN A CLOCK
There is a crumpled piece of lined notebook paper in my house that I would save before I saved a lot of polished presentations. At the top, in my handwriting, it says CPT Chase. Under it are four departure times: 9:00...
Read article →THE PACKAGE COMPLETED THE LOOP AND BECAME AN API
If you ever want to understand why I laugh when somebody asks what I do for a living, follow one package through my career.
Read article →MEASURE FIRST. REASON SECOND.
One of the most dangerous sentences in operations begins with “I think.â€
Read article →THE PROTOTYPE WAS SHREDDED. THE IDEA WASN'T.
I want you to get comfortable with something before you fall in love with programming: your code is disposable.
Read article →MAKE THE COMPUTER DO THE BORING PART
There is a kind of employee every organization loves.
Read article →A QUEUE IS JUST STUFF WAITING FOR ITS TURN
Imagine you and five kids are waiting for one slide.
Read article →WHY A COMPUTER NEEDS TO KNOW WHERE THE THING LIVES
Suppose I tell you to go get the blue Lego.
Read article →THE DAY YOU STOP BEING THE BEST WORKER AND START MAKING OTHER PEOPLE BETTER
Being good at the job and teaching the job are not the same skill.
Read article →YOUR JOB IS NOT TO HAVE THE ANSWER. YOUR JOB IS TO MAKE THE OPERATION LEGIBLE.
When I look at somebody who is ready to move from Learning Ambassador toward Process Assistant, I am looking for a change in the size of the question they ask.
Read article →BEFORE YOU CHANGE ANYTHING, TAKE A PICTURE OF REALITY
If you are twenty-two years old, wearing a manager vest for the first time and suddenly responsible for people who know the operation better than you do, I have one piece of advice that can save you from a tremendous...
Read article →THE REPORT SHOULD BE A BYPRODUCT OF THE WORK
A proposal I would make to a peer or leader before building one more dashboard
Read article →THE DOCK IS NOT THE END OF THE BUILDING. IT IS THE CONTROL SURFACE.
What I would tell a peer or leader before changing how we release volume
Read article →YOUR TEAM DOESN'T HATE CHANGE. THEY HATE BEING REDESIGNED FROM ACROSS THE ROOM.
The consulting story I would tell when a client says, “My people just won't adopt the new process.â€
Read article →YOUR BEST EMPLOYEE IS A HUMAN API
The consulting story I would tell when a business owner says, “I can't lose her. She knows everything.â€
Read article →WHY I LOVED BLUEPRINTS
A love letter to lines that knew what they would become
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