Simplify Your Project

Here's How

  • Essential for any technology team's library
  • The definitive and only reference on minimizing and optimizing project information
  • Get a much more comprehensive understanding of getting the most for the minimal amount of work
  • Grounded on solid principles that can be applied to real organizations
  • Takes being Agile and changing for the better to the next level
  • Save significant time by lifting ideas from this book
  • Conversational style is easy for both tech teams and managers to understand

Steal My Best Stuff

Get the first chapter of the book free along with two emails a week for a month covering the highlights

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Sound Familiar?

Setting Up To Fail

How can I finish this user story when no two people have the same idea about what the words mean?

Destroying Morale

Everybody has to sit in this room and stare at a projector for two hours a week? Seriously?

Misguided Standardization

Why are we required to do the same work and data entry for every little thing we do?

Misunderstood Experts

The book says design is "emergent" and happens through "good conversations" What, exactly, does that mean? Sounds like a bunch of BS to me.

Overwhelmed By Details

There must be a thousand defects in that list. How are we going to deal with that many items?

Stuff Everywhere

We have four different requirements, bug-tracking, agile project management, and work-reporting systems. How do I stop the madness and deal with all of this insanity?

Stale Ideas

Agile is old hat and has been taken over by the consultants. What's next?

Wasting Money

Why are we acting like fast-food workers, taking orders and doing only what we're told?

Wrong Focus

How is it possible that the team did everything I asked them to do and nothing I really needed?

Change Your Paradigm

Listen To The Readers

Full reviews

Do the minimum overhead required to make and keep track of things people want.

Reader Reviews

Business analysts ‘create mental models’ and ‘make analytical leaps’ as if those are actual things and not some kind of black art. A few great practitioners have tried to explain it, and the poor sales of their books are testament that it’s really hard to explain how to build a model of other people’s understanding.

Daniel has a remarkable writing gift. He’s funny and entertaining for sure, yet without realizing what’s happening, he has you thinking in his terms. Whilst you’re enjoying the metaphor of directing a scene in an alien invasion movie, he’s got your mind sorting ‘business abstract’ items into behaviour, structure and supplemental buckets. His gift is explaining how to perform the black magic. Info-Ops is a great name for it.

Compared with the agile-age spotlights that shine brightly on coding, testing, architecture, infrastructure and DevOps, gaining a shared understanding of requirements* is like a shadow. Taken for granted, or outsourced to a jobbing actor with the casting credit of Product Owner.

— Russ Lewis Senior Partner, Storm Consulting


— Jarosław Porwoł Lead Software Engineer at Future Processing

I'm Simon Ouderkirk, I work on the data side of Marketing at We engage in a lot of project based work, which has with it the two-sided problem of considering information flow and information flow design for both our stakeholders and for the underlying data structures. Going into Daniel's book I was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't your standard business book - it was relevant, had actionable advice, and was written by someone who had experience doing the kind of work that I do. For someone who reads their fair share of business books, this was a breath of fresh air!

Not every component of the book is applicable to me or my work - but this is a feature, not a bug. There are a lot of tools here, some cognitive, some code-based, and for anyone working with other humans in 2018, there will be something here that makes your life easier.

— Simon Ouderkirk Data Analysis,

If you want to be more agile you need to read this book. Daniel uses real world stories to draw example information from to build a case for how to think differently about how your work gets accomplished. The first part of the book identifies the importance of communication, experience, and understanding where you are in the scope of a thing. Don't rush in with strict analogies to the background information but let them simmer just under the surface as you draw from them the necessary parts to coalesce the ideas about how to create and organize your work backlog from the his ideas. Focus on the heart of what needs to be done, keeping it simple, with just enough detail to cut across the skills of the team. Keep in mind a few notes can be all it takes for the beginning of your work.

— Brian Jones Network Management Consultant

Dear Daniel,

You know, when I first got to know you, I thought you were a funny guy, but arrogant. (Yes, I am aware of the irony.) After reading the beginning of this book, I realize you're not actually arrogant - just really fucking capable. This may be the best book about process analysis I've ever read. OK, I have to admit it may actually have been the only book about process analysis I've ever read, so there's an inherent grain of salt there, but damn. This stuff is truly fantastic. Very, very well-considered and thought-provoking. I am truly and unironically happy you've given me the opportunity to read it.

Seriously, I find this roughly on par, in its level of thought-provocation, as Doug Hofstadter's work. I might have a slightly weird way of looking at it, so don't derive any expectation of universal acclaim from it, but I do mean it. Damn fine work.

— Michael Roberts Engineer

I'm Ola Ellnestam a software developer and team coach/lead. My job is to balance software development with regards to process, delivery and collaboration. I didn't know what to expect from Info-Ops, I thought it had to do with DevOps and information. A few chapters in though I realized it gives the reader a concrete way of looking at, understanding and in a way, manage the information that flows through a software development effort. It helped me understand underlying problems with that flow and how to deal them. It also gave me new ideas on how to work with semantics in software development in a more pragmatic way. If you want to know how to create a shared mental model in your team and beyond, read this book and I am sure you can become the grease between business and tech.

— Ola Ellnestam Software Developer, Team Coach/Lead


— Adam Beck Agile Coach

Learn new concepts like the Test-Driven Analysis Wheel