Promise is Debt whitepaper published

After quite a few hours of hard work, Willem and I have finished our whitepaper on the Promise is Debt pattern (PDF, in Dutch). We frequently encounter this pattern in IT organisations: it’s a common destructive pattern of behaviour, where people overpromise to compensate for underdelivery; they fail to live up to the expectations, and then overpromise some more again…

We apply systems thinking and diagrams of effects to get a grip on the underlying dynamics and we identify a number of leverage points to break the vicious cycle.

The whitepaper is currently only available in Dutch. We intend to create an English version as well (updated: the English version is available)