Dec 1, 2025 8 min read

🦤 Project Failures, IC Manager Pendulum, Board Meetings, Culture Change, Slowing Development, Articulate Yourself: TMW #459

Getting AI prototypes to scale is tough - join us on Dec 9th to learn how to survive it

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Massive thanks to Sonar for sponsoring this week's issue - the independent standard for integrated code quality and security.

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to the week

Our recent Mind the Gap: Bridging from Sandbox to Scale survey and the report based on the findings we gathered is an important read for any technology leader right now. It's very clear that while AI tools are being commoditised at such a fast rate and we're capitalising on that to create proofs-of-concept that are powerful and intelligent, taking them out of the experimental stage and making them production ready is still a challenge that we haven't quite resolved.

Next week on December 9th, we'll be joined by our friends at Ten10 and The Scale Factory to dig further into the report's findings, as well as some common patterns for surviving the leap from prototype to production. It's free to join, and I guarantee you'll come away with useful insight and tools to use - check it out.

That's it, on with the links! See you next Monday

Andy @ CTO Craft

CTO Craft Con - Dates for Your Diary

The AI Productivity Paradox

AI promises to speed up coding, yet many organisations aren’t realising the productivity boost they expected. Faster code generation often introduces new quality issues, shifting the bottleneck to the review process—an AI engineering productivity paradox.

On 10 December in London, Sonar will host a roundtable to explore why this happens and how to overcome it, examining LLM capabilities, developer workflows, and risk management for AI-generated code. Join your peers for an in-depth, data-driven discussion.

Join the State of Code VIP Roundtables

Andy's Read of the Week

Trillions Spent and Big Software Projects Are Still Failing

This article reveals the persistent problem that large-scale technology projects continue to fail at the same rate they did two decades ago, despite massive investments in new software tools and development methodologies. It suggests that the root cause of these failures is often not a technical deficiency, but rather fundamental issues in technology management, such as inadequate change management, poor leadership, and organisational misalignment.

Why should we pay attention as tech leaders? Because this article shifts the focus from technical solutions to organisational strategy. Go on, have a read.

Leadership, Strategy & Business

The engineer–manager pendulum is breaking

The hybrid era of engineering leadership is here, and the traditional IC/manager model is no longer suitable.

The Modern LeaderKelly Vaughn

Culture, People & Teams

Mind the Gap: Bridging from Sandbox to Scale

For senior tech leaders, the challenge isn’t proving AI’s potential; it’s scaling it responsibly. Mind the Gap: Bridging from Sandbox to Scale reveals the hidden organisational and governance barriers that keep promising projects stuck in pilot mode. Explore data-backed insights and proven strategies to help your teams turn experimentation into real, production-ready impact.

Learn how to take AI experiments into Production - Free Report