Month: December 2014

December 29, 2014

Greg Thomas

The Install is the Experience

Well, I got an XBOX One for XMAS and the first thing I was presented with when I went to turn it on was a screen asking me for updates.  Now this isn’t meant to be a blistering narrative against the hackers, XBOXLive or Microsoft – it’s a bummer it, it happened, everything is great now, I have all my updates and I can merrily play away.  However, when your first experience with a product is that you literally cannot do anything with it (no updates = no playing), you start to question it’s value, buyer’s remorse slowly starts to

December 23, 2014

Greg Thomas

Build the Team not the Process

No one has ever, ever shipped a piece of software and thanked the process.  Apologies to everyone that work with methodologies and ALM, but it’s true. Why? Because, processes don’t ship software, people do.  Do a mental back-check of the last few releases to see what really got them out the door?  Was it the check-in process, how bugs were logged or what happened at the last triage meeting?  Probably not.  No one ever ships a release and goes – “Thank the heavens we have this process because otherwise we would never have been able to go out the door”.  No, it always goes

December 16, 2014

Greg Thomas

Respect thy Calendar

I live in Microsoft Outlook, not something that I originally had as a boyhood dream between being All-Star Cleveland Indians Catcher and Doctor, but hey such is life and I roll through a ton of email on a daily basis so it works.  With work and kids et al, I use my calendar for everything (primarily because it makes sure that I am where I need to be, when I need to be).  Over the years, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend where appointments become stacked on appointments which are already stacked on appointments.  There must be something that can be done…

December 10, 2014

Greg Thomas

Overtake them on the Hill

Many years ago (too many in fact), I undertook the task of running a half-marathon (21km) and training for it in 7 short weeks.  At the time I had a friend who had run many marathons, New York and Boston to name a few, and she outlined a complete training regimen for me to get me in shape.  I still remember my time of 1:58:05 (primarily because I wanted to be under 2 hours). To this day, I always remember the one piece of advice which I applied to that race and now apply to so many other things in life –

December 2, 2014

Greg Thomas

Get out of their way

I have two girls that play ringette – fast game, great game – the older they get, the more intense it gets to the extent that after all these years of not being able to skate I’ve been lacing up my skates once a week to get on the ice with them (although let’s be honest… we are miles apart).  I’m one of those guys that cheers loud for his kids and sometimes I have the odd suggestion for the referees (to be clear: I never boo the other team, scream obscenities and/or when our team has a significant lead I dial it down –

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