First article in the **Never Send The Slides** series on martinfowler.com, published on **September 8, 2026** (~2,400 words, five sections and two sidebars), authored by **Sumeet Gayathri Moghe**, global head of culture and organisational design at **Thoughtworks**; **Martin Fowler** provided editorial review. The text first lays out a definition — *« a presentation is an act of storytelling in which a presenter orchestrates narrative, timing, and emotion to create meaning that neither visuals nor documents can achieve on their own »* — and its corollary: *« the slides are not the presentation »*. From this it derives a hierarchy of five artifacts, condensed at the end into a *cheat sheet* table. **(1)** The **linear document**, sufficient in most business situations where the only goal is to convey information. **(2)** The **infodeck** — the term is Fowler's — when the content has a long shelf life and deserves visual care. **(3)** **Applications web interactives**, to manage the reader's cognitive load. **(4)** **Recorded audio or video**, when the voice matters but not the interaction. **(5)** The **live presentation**, reserved for cases where synchronous presence serves to influence and address objections in real time. Two observations date the text to 2026: **coding harnesses** put the creation of interactive applications within reach of non-developers, and a linear document *« reduces the probability of hallucinations »* when a reader has an LLM summarize it. Same source as [[boeckeler-harness-engineering-coding-agents-2026-04-02]].
#presentation#slides#slideware
Sumeet Gayathri Moghe (global head of culture and organisational design, Thoughtworks) · publié sur martinfowler.com ; relecture éditoriale de Martin Fowler.
Post by **Rachel Laycock**, CTO of **Thoughtworks**, published on **September 2, 2026** on *Rachel's Ramblings*, the martinfowler.com section she runs, roughly **8,000 characters**. The text is a **deliberate response** to [[houck-dx-what-are-code-reviews-for-2026-08-05]], following a public disagreement between the two authors on a **Code Remix** panel hosted by **Moderne**. Laycock accepts Houck's quantified diagnosis (+**106%** lines per diff at **Meta**, +**64%** median PR size on the DX side) and the list of non-defect-finding functions of review, then shifts the question: *« why are we waiting until code review to do all of those things? »* (A) The guiding principle is the shortening of feedback loops learned at Thoughtworks — if feedback has value, don't remove it, move it closer to the decision it informs. Each function attributed to review is reassigned upstream: exploring alternatives before implementation, knowledge transfer through **pair programming**, collective ownership through **mob programming** and team design sessions, architectural alignment through shared design followed by **fitness functions**, and automation of everything deterministic — *« We really shouldn't still be arguing about whitespace in 2026. »* (B) Exception-based review replaces systematic review: a fundamental architectural change, a sensitive security boundary, a large blast radius, an unfamiliar area of a critical system, or simply a team's declared lack of confidence. (1) Automating review with an agent that mimics the human reviewer is dismissed as *« automating the ceremony rather than questioning why the ceremony exists »*. (2) Houck's cognitive debt is acknowledged as real, but the mandatory PR is judged a weak defense: *« We need engineers to understand systems, not diffs. »*
#code review#exception-based review#pull request
Rachel Laycock · CTO de Thoughtworks · sur *Rachel's Ramblings* (martinfowler.com).
Launch of **AI/works™**, an **agentic development platform** claimed by **Thoughtworks** to be *"the new standard for building and running industrial-grade systems in the AI era."* The core pitch is **economic**: *"the old model made you pay millions to build, run, then pay again to rebuild — AI/works™ ends that routine."* The platform covers **the entire SDLC** around a central concept, the ***Super Spec*** (a dynamic, unified specification covering architecture, workflows, security, data, UX), with **six capabilities**: Reverse Engineering (legacy → as-is specs), Dynamic Spec Development (raw requirements → Super Spec), Spec to Code (coordinated agents generating testable code), Developer Experience (governed golden paths), Control Plane (agent orchestration with cost transparency, active guardrails, end-to-end lineage), Runtime Ops (continuous monitoring detecting change, updating the Super Spec, regenerating impacted code). **3-3-3** methodology: 3 days to align on the product concept, 3 weeks for the prototype (desirability/viability/feasibility), 3 months for MVP in production. **Constellation Research** recognition: *"changing the economics of enterprise software delivery"* via a *"spec-driven, lifecycle"* approach. Opening tagline: ***"We are doing it again for the AI era"*** — invoking Thoughtworks' XP/CI-CD/microservices heritage. Anti-hype positioning: *"stands on an engineering foundation rather than enthusiasm"*, *"no consultant crowds"*, *"finance can open the bill without switching on emergency lighting."* Featured partners: AWS, GCP, Azure, Databricks, Snowflake + Claude, OpenAI, DeepSeek, Gemini, Grok + NVIDIA, Groq, Stripe, Spotify, CAST, Cyn DX, Mechanical Orchard.
#Thoughtworks#AI/works#AI works trademark
**Thoughtworks** (auteur collectif corporate, page produit/marketing). Aucun individu cité sur la page. Contexte des figures Thoughtworks pertinentes en arrière-plan : **Martin Fowler** (chief scientist emeritus, *Refactoring*, *Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture*) · **Rebecca Parsons** (CTO emeritus) · **Birgitta Böckeler** (Distinguished Engineer, *Harness Engineering for Coding Agents*, fiche 2026-04-02) · **Matt Kamelman** (*Service-as-Software*, fiche 2025-12-03) · **Sam Newman** (*Building Microservices*).
Thoughtworks retreat on the future of software development with LLMs — reflections on organizational impact, cognitive debt, and supervised programming