You can have a perfectly organised calendar, sorted priorities, colour-coded projects — and still be solving the wrong problem. That is the uncomfortable but very useful point of ŘEŽ. It doesn't teach you how to get more done. It teaches you to recognise which work carries real strategic weight, what is necessary day-to-day operations, and which projects should never have started at all. I've read it twice and I'm slowly turning the rudder.

ŘEŽ is here so you don't have to build expensive tombstones for your projects and guaranteed brilliant ideas. You'll be able to cut them before it hurts — or, the other way round, you'll know with far greater certainty where to invest your precious attention, time and money. The book gives you a selection of sharpened tools that teach you to think better: to validate ideas quickly, to discuss complex problems meaningfully, to decide according to the situation and above all to tackle what really matters. The biggest gamechanger for me are design probes — very concrete and very cheap methods that let you test within a few days whether your idea stands a chance, without having anything finished in hand.

A fantastic, simple test from the book: state the opposite of your decision. If it's obviously nonsense, it wasn't a strategic decision. The same goes for the difference between outputs, outcomes and impact — anyone can manage an output, with outcomes you have to think about how to get there, and impact is a real challenge. I had never understood Wardley maps until now: I didn't know how important the horizontal axis is, and that makes all the difference. A great book for opening your eyes, for new ideas, for the things that play together and can move your business somewhere. Finishing the book isn't the end but really just the start of the journey.

ŘEŽ is about decision-making. Specifically about how not to start a project you should never have started — and how to cut a running one in time. Nine strategic tools Jan spent ten years testing in his own agency: Wardley maps, Cynefin, 7 Powers, the theory of constraints. Which is exactly the kind of book worth writing and reading today.

It isn't just a random collection of methods. In the book Jan shares the know-how he gained over years of running House of Řezáč — carefully selected methods that went through a sieve and a trial by fire in his own company. The theory of constraints significantly changed how I look at prioritisation, and Cynefin has helped me several times to name a problem correctly and respond to it with the right strategy. At a time when the whole of human knowledge is one prompt away, making the right choice is becoming the most valuable thing. And in ŘEŽ, Jan serves it to you on a golden platter. For a few hundred crowns.

Plenty of courses show you how the presenter did it. Nice. Except you don't have their product, their budget or their team. In ŘEŽ, Jan hands you the tools, explains them and points you to where to read further. Rack your brain a little and you can map those principles onto your own situation right away. It's ideal for founders weighing up which further products to ship, for managers who may micromanage a bit too much, for owners and C-level people in companies worried about AI, and for anyone who likes digging into frameworks and strategies.

Two years ago we kicked off a brutal project in the company that gave us a lot of grey hair and took a few years off our lives. If I'd known the methods from ŘEŽ back then, we'd probably have gone about it differently. No waffle, methods described to the point, examples from practice. At the same time, the advice in the book doesn't pretend to be a cure-all for every ache you have. I bought it twice.

ŘEŽ cuts like a scalpel — one precise stroke exactly where it's needed. No fat, no extra sauce, no academic packaging of the kind consultants serve you with a hefty invoice. It won't think for you. It will teach you to cut — to separate what matters from what doesn't and to take responsibility for it. I recommend it to anyone running a product, a team or a project at a time when the ground shifts under your feet month after month.

Knihu Jana Řezáče by si měli přečíst zejména majitelé a vrcholový management, kteří jsou zodpovědní za naplňování cílů a směřování své firmy. Jan se nezabývá nudnou teorií, ale představuje ryze praktické nástroje hodící se pro různé fáze přípravy firemní strategie. Líbí se mi, že se jedná o méně známé, ale o to více užitečné, nástroje. Mezi ně patří třeba Wardleyho mapy, 7 sil nebo teorie omezení. Čtenář tak získá neotřelé pohledy na to, jak postupovat, a pravděpodobně zažije i zajímavé aha momenty. Už jenom proto doporučuji si knihu přečíst.

Poradenství na pomezí podnikání, komunikace, digitalizace a strategie je v českém prostředí hodně velká rarita. Jan Řezáč se v této nice vypracoval na jednoho z velmistrů. Tuto knihu jsem si nejen přečetl s velkým gustem jako Řezáčovu „Summu Theologicu“, ale hodlám se k ní opakovaně vracet jako k praktické příručce moderní strategie pro otevřené a informované podnikatele. Vám doporučuji totéž.

ŘEŽ skvěle propojuje tři věci, které jsem doteď řešil odděleně — strategické myšlení, AI a každodenní praxi. Najednou vím, na čem stavět dál.