Winning Wars With Agile: Fear and Loathing – Revisited

13 Friday Mar 2026

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in Inform, educate and entertain.

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Martyn Rhisiart Jones

“Logistics is all of war-making, except shooting the guns, releasing the bombs, and firing the torpedoes.”

ADM Lynde D. McCormick, USN

Martyn Rhisiart Jones, Córdoba, 3rd October 2024

Martyn Rhisiart Jones, Marid, Friday 13th March 2026

In the boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the corridors of Whitehall, the gospel of agility has become a mantra for efficiency and innovation. Borrowed from the frenetic world of software development, where iterative sprints and self-organising teams promise to outpace lumbering bureaucracies, agile methodologies, scaled up through frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), are now touted as universal elixirs. But can these principles, honed in the digital realm, truly orchestrate the chaos of armed conflict? Or do they risk injecting perilous uncertainty into arenas where hesitation can spell catastrophe? This question, once a provocative thought experiment, gains urgency amid evolving threats, from hybrid warfare in Eastern Europe to cyber skirmishes in the South China Sea. Drawing on historical precedents, contemporary military adaptations, and a dash of Celtic scepticism, we dissect whether agility’s allure holds water on the front lines, echoing the resilient pragmatism of Welsh soldiery through the ages.

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Celtic Domination: A Literary Journey of Identity and Vision – Book Review

07 Saturday Mar 2026

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amoral, amorality, anxiety, art, asturias, bad-leader, beauty, book-review, books, britanny, Business, celt, celtic, child-killers, coaching, cooking, cornwall, courage, Creativity, data architecture, Data governance, data management, data mesh, data-design, data-directions, data-mess, data-police, decency, degeneracy, degenerate, depraved, depravity, depression, domination, drawing, european-values, fiction, food, galicia, globalism, Good Strategy, good-leader, governance, head-of-state, health, history, honesty, honour, hubris, idiots, illustration, inspiration, ireland, isle-of-man, kiddy-fiddlers, leader, leadership, Liberal, lifestyle, LinkedIn, literature, makeup, Management, manx, mental-health, nationalism, north-portugal, painting, photography, Poetry, policy, Politics, recipes, relationships, Scotland, statesperson, stupidity, technology, the-data-of-data, travel, vulgarity, Wales, writing, x

Celtic, European and Worldly

Heidi Katushka, Times Literary Supplement, Oxford, Saturday, 7th March 2026

In Celtic Domination: The Most Significant Influencers, Martyn de Tours (a pseudonym of the prolific, contrarian strategist Martyn Jones) has produced a work that is at once a novel, a manifesto, a pilgrimage memoir, and a speculative blueprint for pan-Celtic resurgence. Published in 2025 and running to some 428 pages in its paperback edition, the book arrives like a fever dream dispatched from the Camino de Santiago, where the author has evidently spent considerable time walking, talking, and ruminating. The result is a text that defies easy categorization, part sibling reunion laced with intrigue, part philosophical treatise on identity and power, part utopian pamphlet for a “Celtic Union”, and yet it coheres, after a fashion, through sheer audacity and the insistent pulse of its Celtic romanticism.

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F*CK DATA MESH: The Contrarian’s Take on Data Tech – Book Review

06 Friday Mar 2026

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The Bonfire of the Vacuous

Review: The Great Data Schism – Why the ‘Schmesh’ is a Schmess

Paula Prada Price, New College Tech Review, Notting Hill, Friday, 6th March 2026

Martyn Jones’s F*CK DATA MESH is a bracing, profane, and essential Broadside against the Silicon Valley hype machine.*

In the glittering circus of modern data tech, where vendors hawk “revolutionary” architectures like snake oil at a Silicon Valley swap meet, Martyn Jones has lobbed what can only be described as a literary Molotov cocktail titled F*CK DATA MESH: The Far Side of Data, Information, and Knowledge. It’s less a book than a gleefully profane haymaker aimed squarely at the jaw of the industry’s latest sacred cow. And reader, it connects.

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Why Data Mesh is Not the Future of Data Management – Book Review

06 Friday Mar 2026

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The Bonfire of the Vacuous

Review: The Great Data Schism – Why the ‘Mesh’ is a Mess

Lady Amanda Percival, The Wired Wire, Kensington, Friday, 6th March 2026

Martyn Jones’s F*CK DATA MESH is a bracing, profane, and essential Broadside against the Silicon Valley hype machine.*

In the hushed boardrooms of the Fortune 500, “Data Mesh” has become the latest secular religion. It promises a decentralized utopia where data is treated as a product and domain owners are liberated from the “monolithic” tyranny of the central data warehouse. But according to Martyn Jones, a man whose career has seen the rise and fall of more tech fads than a McKinsey slide deck, this new paradigm is less of a revolution and more of a “fraudulent flim-flam sauce” served up by consultants looking for their next utilization spike.

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F*CK DATA MESH: A Critical Look at Data Trends – Book Review

05 Thursday Mar 2026

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The Bonfire of the Clowns

F*CK DATA MESH: A polemic against fashionable nonsense in the data economy

Alicia Altmann, The Middle Digital Review, Chicago, 5th March 2026.

In the technology industry, few phrases age faster than the latest architectural revolution. “Serverless”, “big data”, “blockchain”, each arrives with evangelical certainty before quietly settling into the background noise of enterprise IT. Into this cycle of hype steps Martyn Jones’s gleefully abrasive book, F*CK DATA MESH: The Far Side of Data, Information, and Knowledge*. Its title alone signals that this is less a manual than a polemic: a sharply written protest against what the author sees as the fashionable amnesia of modern data discourse.

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F*ck Data Mesh: Martyn Jones’s Hilarious Haymaker at Tech’s Data Delusions – Book Review

05 Thursday Mar 2026

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The Bonfire of the Imbeciles

F*ck Data Mesh: Martyn Jones’s Hilarious Haymaker at Tech’s Data Delusions

Review by Bella Carmela, WiredWiredWired, Silicon Valley, Thursday 5th March 2026

In the hyper-connected, AI-obsessed circus of modern enterprise tech, where every startup pitches a “revolutionary” data paradigm like it’s the next iPhone, Martyn Jones drops a bomb: Fck Data Mesh*. Subtitled The Far Side of Data, Information, and Knowledge, this 2025 manifesto isn’t your typical dry treatise on ETL pipelines or cloud migrations. It’s a rollicking, profane takedown of the industry’s sacred cows… Data Mesh, Lakehouses, and the endless hype cycle that turns solid data strategies into vaporware. Written with the acerbic wit of a Welsh data veteran who’s seen it all (from mainframes to metadata meltdowns), Jones channels the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson meets Dilbert, urging businesses to wake up before their next “transformative” initiative sinks another billion into the swamp.

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The Decline of Honour in Global Politics – Book Review

04 Wednesday Mar 2026

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A Plague On All of Their Houses

By Rebecca Kennedy, The Observer, Chelsea, Wednesday 4th March 2026

The End of Honour: From Absurdity to Global Thuggery By Martyn Jones (martyn.es, 2025)

In the grand sweep of history, as Paul Kennedy might observe, empires rise and fall not merely through the clash of arms or the ebb of economic tides, but through the erosion of moral sinews that bind societies and their leaders. Martyn Jones’s The End of Honour echoes this Kennedy-esque thesis, charting the precipitous decline of integrity in global politics from the unipolar illusions of the post-Cold War era to the brazen thuggery of contemporary strongmen. Written over a quarter-century, this sprawling polemic, part historical autopsy, part diplomatic jeremiad, dissects how the United States, once the self-anointed guardian of liberal order, has devolved into a “basket case” of strategic incoherence, abetted by neoliberal hubris and neoconservative adventurism. Jones, a data strategist turned contrarian commentator, draws on a lifetime of observation, from Welsh nationalism to Spanish socialism, to argue that honour’s demise has unleashed a world of “global thuggery,” where power is wielded not with restraint but as a blunt instrument of self-interest.

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BOOK REVIEW: Good vs Bad Leadership: Key Insights

03 Tuesday Mar 2026

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Good Leader / Bad Leader – Martyn Jones

By Stephanie Charming, Madrid, Tuesday 3rd March 2026

Leadership

In the annals of leadership literature, few works pierce the fog of modern managerial sophistry with the precision of a well-aimed bayonet charge. Martyn Jones’s Good Leader/Bad Leader: The Difference and Why It Matters stands as a clarion call to arms, a treatise that dissects the anatomy of command with the surgical acuity of Sun Tzu and the unflinching moral rigour of Marcus Aurelius. As a veteran strategist in the digital trenches, once hailed as one of the world’s top database minds, Jones draws not from ivory-tower abstractions but from the bloodied fields of corporate and public service battles. His book is no mere manual; it is a manifesto for the embattled leader, a compass for navigating the treacherous terrains of human ambition and institutional decay.

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BOOK REVIEW: Martyn Jones on Leadership Integrity

03 Tuesday Mar 2026

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Good Leader / Bad Leader – Martyn Jones

By Stephanie Charming, Madrid, Tuesday 3rd March 2026

Leadership

In Good Leader/Bad Leader: The difference and why it matters, Martyn Jones sets himself an unfashionable task. At a time when leadership literature is awash with nuance, frameworks and neurobiological footnotes, he returns to first principles: good is good; bad is bad. And the distinction, he insists, is neither academic nor optional.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Moral Foundations of Effective Leadership

02 Monday Mar 2026

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Good Leader / Bad Leader – Martyn Jones

By Jennifer Bartlett, Chelsea, Monday 2^nd March 2026

Leadership

In Good Leader / Bad Leader: The difference and why it matters, Martyn Jones provides a visceral, unfiltered, and deeply philosophical examination of leadership that eschews the sanitised language of modern corporate manuals. Jones, a veteran consultant with four decades of experience advising global giants like Adidas, IBM, and the United Nations, crafts a manifesto that is part ethical treatise and part practical field guide for the “leadership masochist”.

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CONSIDER THIS: Five Laws Everyone Should Know – 2026/01/24

24 Saturday Jan 2026

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in humour, Inform, educate and entertain., IT Circus, Polemic, Strategy

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Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, 24th January 2026

Introduction

These are five common goodstrat laws that everyone should be aware of.

“Martyn Rhisiart Jones… Writes dry, merciless takedowns of data/AI/strategy hype at goodstrat.com.

Believes most corporate decks deserve the bin and most buzzwords deserve worse.

Occasionally drops canon: the Martyn Rhisiart Jones Effect, GoodStrat Law, Celtic Domination Principle, Georgie Lovering Razor, Valley Commando Principle…

Mostly here to remind everyone that clarity still cuts deeper than PowerPoint.”

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10 AI Agents Every Business Leader Needs To Steer Clear of in 2026 – 2026/01/13

12 Monday Jan 2026

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2026, agentic, agents, AI, Artificial Intelligence, bollox-mania, Business, BusinessStrategy, charlatans, chatgpt, leadership, technology, TechTrends

Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, Tuesday 13th January 2026

As we venture further into 2026, the landscape of enterprise artificial intelligence has undergone a subtle but profound shift. The once-dazzling promise of autonomous AI agents has matured into something more prosaic. These self-directed digital entities can orchestrate tasks from customer engagement to complex data integration. Yet, they are no less pervasive. They are no longer novelties confined to experimental labs; they inhabit boardrooms, back offices and supply chains alike.

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Navigating Democracy: Lessons from Tony Benn’s Perspective

13 Saturday Dec 2025

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in governance, public, technology

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My sister was part of a group that offered support to the striking miners of Wales, Scotland and England.

They organised a public fundraiser and invited the politician Tony Benn to speak.

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Good Leader/Bad Leader: The difference and why it matters

09 Wednesday Apr 2025

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BUY ME @ AMAZON

Good and Bad

In our real and imaginary worlds, there is good and bad. But what does it mean?

Although not as clear-cut in all circumstances as some people might like, their use is valid. They offer a philosophical and ethical view of things, society, culture, and ideas, as well as providing a starting point for discussions on values and principles.

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Balanced Scorecard – BSC

12 Sunday Jan 2025

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Martyn Jones

A balanced scorecard is a strategy performance management tool – a well-structured report used to keep track of the execution of activities by staff and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions.
The term ‘balanced scorecard’ primarily refers to a performance management report used by a management team, and typically focused on managing the implementation of a strategy or operational activities. In a 2020 survey 88% of respondents reported using the balanced scorecard for strategy implementation management, and 63% for operational management. Although less common, the balanced scorecard is also used by individuals to track personal performance; only 17% of respondents in the survey reported using balanced scorecards in this way. However it is clear from the same survey that a larger proportion (about 30%) use corporate balanced scorecard elements to inform personal goal setting and incentive calculations.

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Top Leadership Lessons to Enhance Your Skills

08 Friday Nov 2024

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in Inform, educate and entertain.

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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Business, coaching, leadership, Management, personal development

My Thoughts About Leadership

Leadership, wherever it is to be found, and it can be found almost everywhere, plays an essential role in everything, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. The subject of leadership, like strategy, is very close to me, and these are facets of my knowledge and experience that I constantly try to improve. Here, I am detailing some of the leadership points of view that I have developed or embraced to some degree or another. These are things that have also served to shape me and, more importantly, to bring me to where I now am: the village of Bandoxa.

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Can Agile Methods Win a War?

03 Thursday Oct 2024

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Martyn Richard Jones

“Logistics is all of war-making, except shooting the guns, releasing the bombs, and firing the torpedoes.”

ADM Lynde D. McCormick, USN

Martyn Richard Jones, Córdoba, 3rd October 2024

Narrator: Here is a billion-dollar question: Can Agile-to-Scale be effectively used to fight a war, a regional conflict, or a global existential threat?

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STRAIGHT TALK: Leadership 7s

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in Good Strategy, goodstrat, Inform, educate and entertain., Martyn Jones

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AD: — JOIN THE BIG DATA CONTRARIANS: http://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8338976

To begin at the beginning

Here are the second seven talking points in this series that deal with aspects of leadership, coaching and management. Enjoy! Continue reading →

41 Shots of Great Leadership

20 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in Consider this, good start, goodstart, humour

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41 Shots of Great Leadership

Consider this. Why be shameful when all around you have apparently no idea of right from wrong?

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Leadership 7s: Management Talking Points #2 – 2026

09 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in Consider this, Leadership 7s

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business strategy, data analytics, leadership

Martyn Richard Jones

To begin at the beginning

This is the second in a series of management talking points. As I mentioned in the first of the series (available on LinkedIn and on my own Good Strat Blog) the name Leadership 7s was chosen based on certain influences in my formative years; rugby union and the heroes of the legendary Welsh rugby team of the ‘golden age’ (1969-1979).

Here are the second seven talking points in this series, which address aspects of leadership, coaching, and management. Continue reading →

Leadership 7s: Management Talking Points #1

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Martyn Rhisiart Jones in Leadership 7s

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Martyn Richard Jones

To begin at the beginning

This is the first in a series of management talking points. The name Leadership 7s has been influenced by rugby, which is quite possibly the emblematic game of my youth and of the home country of my Mom and Dad, Wales. In fact, much of what I learned about leadership in my formative years came from influences such as rugby union.

Here are the first seven talking points that deal with aspects of leadership, coaching and management.

Leadership point #1 – Always have a Plan B Continue reading →