Jonathon Anderson
Jan 12, 2026 - Aug 28, 2026
11
Decisions
0
Active Todos
11
Patterns
Categories
Decisions (11)
Broken-in-production is an automatic fast path - small thing with embarrassing impact jumps the queue regardless of the size of the epic around it
In the 2026-08-25 Exec Product Prioritization session the errata CPE-to-product mapping item had drifted to number 30 on the board. The specific defect was that CIQ was shipping images identified as Rocky Linux when they should have been identified as RLC Pro. Peter moved it into the top ten on the spot. Brian Dawson stopped and asked what criterion drove the move, and Peter generalised it: something broken that we are shipping is an automatic fast path. He bounded it in the same breath - the broader errata epic is genuinely large and stays where it is; only the shipping-the-wrong-identifiers piece jumps, because fixing that piece is not dramatic at all. In the same meeting he pushed the reciprocal direction, arguing that some net-new items should be prioritized above keep-the-lights-on work because a two-month effort sitting at number 34 becomes a six-month effort.
Fuzzball Substrate can be an option for the Kubernetes engine, never the only runtime - ship on existing rails or nobody buys the train
In the Aug 24 Kubernetes Weekly Sync, Jonathon Anderson raised whether the new CIQ Kubernetes engine should use Fuzzball Substrate as its default or its only container runtime, framing it as the question that would drive whether Substrate gets open-sourced - a Substrate-by-default engine would put Substrate in far more places and let CIQ target the same worker nodes with both Fuzzball Orchestrate and the Kubernetes engine. Bjorn Hovland split it immediately: default yes, only no, on the grounds that forcing one runtime reduces the usefulness of Kubernetes and CIQ products should be independently viable with value-add tie-ins. Peter argued against both halves from the buyer side, taking the position of a hyperscaler already running Kubernetes and evaluating a switch to CIQ: either CIQ sits on the same Kubernetes they already sit on, which is an easy sale to reason about, or CIQ hands them a pile of validation hoops to clear before a contract can be signed. He compressed it to a rule - it has to include existing rail widths, otherwise nobody is going to buy our trains - and then kept the door open rather than closing it, noting defaults can change over time as Fuzzball starts getting traction. Jonathon withdrew the framing as overstated. Chris Wolford then supplied the decisive fact, that Substrate cannot be the Kubernetes default because the engine would fail Kubernetes conformance testing and lose certification, and proposed it as a user-selectable option in the Pro tier instead. Jonathon concluded the open-source question is therefore deferred, since it only mattered if Substrate were the shipping default.
Redirect the entire Core42 solution-review effort away from the people on the call and toward whoever watches the recording afterward - and make every answer technical, never personal
Peter reframed the Core42 engagement in his Nathan 1:1 and again in the group prep. His read: the Core42 security team is married to a Red Hat solution and is using the calls to collect disqualifying gaps, so there is no answer that converts the room. He therefore instructed the team to assume the people on the call are antagonistic, to stop optimizing answers for them, and to tailor everything to the decision-makers who will review the recording. Concretely: stay calm, concise and confident; give less detail rather than more; say yes we can do that repeatedly; and convert every rebuttal from a personal challenge into a technical statement - the FreeIPA docs confirm session recording is possible, not why are you saying it cannot. He also killed Bjorn framing that the win depends on having the best prepared answers.
Mandate 24-hour Sev-1 outage auto-escalation to estaff and AE
After the Fyr Fuzzball outage ran roughly 5 days without surfacing to leadership and the customer had to ping Horn directly to force escalation, Peter directed that any Sev-1 or customer outage open past 24 hours must automatically notify estaff and the account AE, built into tooling so it does not depend on a human judgment call. Ryan operationalized it as Zendesk automation plus CCing named-account AEs at ticket creation.
Fuzzball PoC ownership belongs to Sales Engineering, supported by Engineering
When Bjorn asked who should own Fuzzball PoCs (Sales Engineering vs Wolfgang/Godlove vs Support), Peter answered definitively: Sales Engineering, supported by Engineering. Bjorn agreed with the framing — pushback was strictly about Sales Engineering not being enabled on Fuzzball today (resourcing gap), not the principle. The default routing stands.
Set Sales Scope Discipline on Nokia Opportunity
In MPDM with Adam Jackson, Bjorn, Greg, and Jonathon, set firm boundaries on product scope for the Nokia deal. CIQ should sell what it has and is good at, not build custom solutions to close individual deals. The bar for adding new capabilities is company-level strategic pivot territory — not deal-level customization. Stated 'enough money is a LOT' and 'its not going to be for another 500k, or just to close the deal.'
Defended Global Prioritization Model with Per-Team Computed Views
Convinced Greg that product prioritization must remain a single global list, not grouped by team. Agreed to add a computed property showing priority within each team for visibility. Fuzzball was reprioritized into top 20 in Exec meeting; Greg's remaining concern about Fuzzball not being high enough was resolved via the global+computed-property approach.
Fuzzball SaaS Prepaid Token Billing Model with Unified Portal Backend
Drove adoption of prepaid token ('CIQ Tokens') billing model for Fuzzball SaaS MVP, with unified Portal backend as single source of truth for all user accounts and token balances. Free tier deferred to fast-follow. MVP requires account + credit card to run workflows.
Gate Fuzzball SaaS GTM on Working Prototype — Assign Michelle
Agreed to move forward on Fuzzball SaaS GTM but gated it on having a working prototype first. Suggested Michelle as the resource to stand up a prototype on top of existing Fuzzball, accepting she's not the ideal person but can make progress. Rejected doing it 'out of band' — keep in normal product flow.
Directed Fuzzball team to improve logging and error observability
After AMD MI300 troubleshooting meeting, directed Fuzzball team (Jonathon Anderson, David Horn) that the product needs better logging and error visibility. Customers should be able to self-diagnose issues via log files instead of requiring live troubleshooting meetings with CIQ engineers.
H1 Planning Framework - 3-Lane Model
Introduced a new 3-lane planning model to address GTM and Engineering misalignment. Top Lane (GTM): marketing campaigns, messaging. Middle Lane (Value Drivers): the why - market state change, ICP, business significance. Bottom Lane (Engineering): deliverables driven by Value Drivers.
Related Patterns (11)
Executive Sponsorship for Strategic Partnerships
Strategic cross-company initiatives and major client partnerships require executive-level accountability to move at the right pace and ensure proper prioritization.
Small Circle for Sensitive Operations
When executing sensitive strategic operations, keep the circle of informed people as small as possible to prevent leaks that could accelerate hostile action or undermine the initiative.
Protect Engineering Capacity
When external demands threaten to overload engineering capacity, protect capacity by either requiring the demand to come with additional resources, or forcing hard prioritization choices upstream.
Lead by Example with New Tools
When championing new tools or processes, personally use them and share results rather than just advocating. Learning by doing and demonstrating value through example is more effective than mandates.
Protect Engineering Focus Through Process
When faced with requests that would disrupt engineering focus (from sales, governance, product, or other stakeholders), establish processes that protect engineering ability to innovate while still satisfying legitimate concerns. Prefer systematic solutions over ad-hoc responses.
Reclassify to Route - Decide Who Owns It, Then Give a Criterion Not a Verdict
When a question arrives at Peter framed in one domain, he often does not answer it in that framing. He reclassifies it into the domain that actually governs the outcome, which relocates ownership to whoever owns that lane, and then hands down a decision criterion rather than a verdict. The reclassification IS the decision - it determines who decides. He does this rather than adjudicating on the merits himself, even when he was explicitly cc-ed and even when a direct report challenges him on the substance.
Purpose Is the Decision Procedure
When someone asks how a process, board, tool or artifact should handle their specific case, Peter refuses to answer on the askers terms. He re-derives the answer from what the artifact is for, states that purpose as the only decision procedure, and lets the answer fall out. Anything found to be serving a second purpose is deleted rather than debated. Tools and views are explicitly subordinate to definitions. He will accept that the askers real problem is simply not solved by this artifact rather than widen the artifact to cover it.
Route Non-Differentiating FTE Classes to Partners
When CIQ would otherwise need to staff a function whose work does not differentiate the company — compliance bureaucracy, audit/cert paperwork, ongoing regulatory attestation, etc. — Peter routes the load to a partner who already owns adjacent capability rather than adding the FTE class internally. Org-shape decision dressed as a partnership decision.
Decide on the Precedent, Not the Case
When a request arrives framed as a one-off, Peter does not evaluate the one-off. He evaluates the rule that granting it would write, and answers that instead. Peter generalized this himself on 2026-08-11: it is always about understanding precedent - whether it is a comp change or anything that structurally affects the company. It is therefore NOT a compensation pattern; the domain of the presenting request is incidental. The tell that this pattern is live is that the stated reason for the answer refers to future cases rather than to the merits of the present one.
Metrics Must Follow Strategy
When shifting team priorities or strategic direction, the communication alone will not drive behavior change. Engineers may acknowledge the new direction but continue existing behavior patterns without clear, explicit metrics holding them accountable.
Constrain the Mechanism, Not the Access
When AI or automation raises a governance concern, Peter does not restrict who or what may reach the data. He constrains HOW the reach happens, so the pathway becomes auditable and deterministic. The failure mode he designs against is non-determinism, not leakage - a wrong filter in inspectable static code is a bug you fix once, while a model that sometimes pulls the wrong field is an unbounded, unauditable liability. He will therefore accept imperfect filtering and eventual leakage as the price of adoption speed, but will not accept a non-inspectable pathway.