December 7, 2020

Greg Thomas

The Expert

I was reminded of a story a while back when a friend of ours was called an expert in their field. Whatever he was talking about at that time he stopped and refuted. Even going so far as to cancel a show interview because they wanted to advertise him as an expert. His response – “No one is an expert, we are all learning, and we are all, always gaining experience.” Useful advice when you think you are at the top of game, not realizing how much you still have left to learn.

December 6, 2020

Greg Thomas

Lead

Everyone. Not just managers. Not just Tech Leads. Not just Project Leads. Not just Team Leads. But everyone. Just because someone, somewhere, once, long ago, you can’t even remember where, but the emotion and the gravity of what they said told you couldn’t lead. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. And doesn’t mean that we need you to. So Lead. Now.

December 5, 2020

Greg Thomas

Good Code is Great Art

When code comes together it sings. When a connection breaks and your code keeps running, it’s a symphony. When the environment changes and your code reloads and changes to the new dynamic, it’s a masterpiece. When the keywords and text are flying off your fingers and every time you press F5 it builds correctly, it is dreams coming to life. Good Code is Great Art. It’s not a factory. It’s not a user story. It’s not a backlog item. It’s Art.

December 4, 2020

Greg Thomas

The Hurt Agile Gives

I’m not big on methodologies, because there are so many ways to solve so many problems that boxing yourself into one mindset sounds very scary. If you’re open to change, great, but often what I see is people not being open to change when they “adopt” a methodology. There are many hurts that can come from Agile, but the big one, is the adoption. If only one group of your company is using Agile, they will invariably be spending time explaining to everyone what it is, they will have to make extraneous dashboards that walk people through what it is

December 3, 2020

Greg Thomas

The Confusion in a new Team

When a new team comes together there is a period of gelling that needs to happen where we go beyond – who you are and where did you come from – and get into the grittier work of having the team come together. Things like; What’s your zone time where you do your best work? Where are you working and where do you want grow? How do you manage your own workload? What support do you need from me in delivering solutions? How do you learn best? How can I support that? Where do you struggle? All these questions (and