Over the years I've tried a lot of organisational models. Standups. Retrospectives. Timesheets. Sprint planning. The full suite.
At eXOReaction, we've converged on something different. It's not a framework with a name. It's more a set of positions — things we've decided, and held to, even when they make people uncomfortable.
In 2017 I wrote a short piece out of frustration — a street-smart survival guide for developers tired of missing deadlines despite giving themselves plenty of time. Eight years later the problem hasn't changed. If anything it's worse: we have more tools, more planning methods, more retrospectives, and we still end up in last-minute panic on projects we thought we had under control.
I revisited the original piece in November 2025 with a bit of help from AI — research, narration, the lot. Here's the framework, written out properly.
In late 2024 and through 2025, we published a series of short horror stories about building with LLMs. Not fictional in the sense of being made up — fictional in the sense of being slightly dramatised versions of things that happen, or will happen, or already have happened to someone you know.
The format was deliberate. Security warnings written as dry checklists get skimmed. Security warnings written as campfire stories get remembered.
Here are all eight tales.