Month: August 2020

August 10, 2020

Greg Thomas

Leading Teams Remotely

What does it take to lead teams remotely? What are some of the ups and downs that you are going to go through? What has worked for you over the past few months and what exploded on the launchpad before it even happened? What would you like a do-over at? What do you need help in? Do these sound like questions that might be asked of you during a podcast? They probably are. We’re gearing up for Season 2 of Remotely Prepared where our focus for the season is going to be on leading teams remotely – what goes into

August 7, 2020

Greg Thomas

Can you hear me?

The most common phrase that has been uttered since we all started working remotely. And guess what, to many the answer is still no. Because we weren’t listening before, because we weren’t taking in what people were saying and because all we wanted to hear is what was playing in our head. You don’t need to be muted to realize that. Being muted simply makes it real and forces you to hit the button hoping people are going to start listening. And if they aren’t going to listen, then find someone who will and make them your champion. (And listen

August 6, 2020

Greg Thomas

But will it work?

I hope so. But if we’re building it for the first time, all I can give you is an educated guess based on what I know and where we’re going. I’ll toss in a dash of experience and know-how but if it’s something brand new you’re asking for and you need a definite answer as to whether it will work the way we are drawing it on the board today and you can’t proceed with that answer. Then I’d suggest a new career, one with more known parameters attached to it. The beauty of software is sometimes things don’t work

August 5, 2020

Greg Thomas

Picking a Software Methodology

I was listening to a great podcast in the car today – “Programming Leadership” – and the topic was on Agile Development. At one point the interviewee on the cast said something along the lines of – “you learn a couple of methodologies, you put them into a toolbox and you pick what works for your organization and you do it.” – I almost pulled the car off to the side of the road. I’ve been saying this for years to teams that are hooked on having to follow a methodology for the sake of following it. Don’t. And this

August 4, 2020

Greg Thomas

Why I never got into Pair Programming

Because I don’t like people looking over my shoulder. For me, I need to run look at my code, stare at it, change the variable names a few different times, decide what case I’m doing today, refactor a bit here, do an F5 on the simplest of changes and then when I think it’s all done. I’ll stare at it some more and wonder what I should do next. In short, I would drive the person beside me crazy. And that’s before I’d have to give you control of the keyboard. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t work for

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