Month: February 2021

February 23, 2021

Greg Thomas

Leading Up

When you lead a team, you are presumably the one that everyone knows as the leader that is in that position to lead. Whether it’s by an organization chart, or a discussion among the team, you are the person “at the top” so to say. But when you are Leading Up, you are not, you are somewhere in the middle with a team that has rallied around your skills and recognizes your abilities and “know-how” to deliver on the project you are working on. Take a step further, you are now in the position of leading from that middle to

February 22, 2021

Greg Thomas

But that first step…

Each time I sit down to write new code. Learn a new API. Write a new Post. Learn a new technology. Anything, whatever it is that is brand new, there is that first 5 minutes of “I have no idea what I’m doing and this is going to be a complete and utter mess” that goes through my head where I try and talk myself out of the work that I should be doing but am not. I sit there and stare at the screen and mentally go through all the things I have to do and my mind becomes

February 21, 2021

Greg Thomas

The 7 Stages of Creativity

No, it’s not something I wrote. At the last conference I attended (going back to 2016), I attended Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. On the last day, the last session made the entire conference entirely worthwhile. I would have paid the conference fee to attend this session again. The talk is given by James Whittaker and is such a great talk on the need for creativity in everything we do. I’ve watched some of his other talks on storytelling and presentations which have helped me greatly. If you’re looking for motivation and direction on how to engage your creativity, take a

February 20, 2021

Greg Thomas

The Imagined Rush

When it needs to get done. When we needed it yesterday. When the customer is asking for it. When the project plan says it must be done. Until you look at what you are doing, how you are doing it and where you need to go with it, it’s all imagined, it’s all an idea, it’s all a concept. There is no rush, unless you make one. And if you’re making one, the only people you are hurting is your team.

February 19, 2021

Greg Thomas

The Rush to Fix

When a catastrophic issue arises on your project, the immediate push is to get in there and fix it as soon as possible. How can we patch? How can we get to the bottom of it? How can we make it work better? We do this, without fully understanding the extent or impact to the problem as a whole. We do this without possible fully understanding all the issues at large but wanting to do something, to show progress and make it look like we have resolved the issue. The better strategy is to take a step back and look

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