Month: November 2021

November 4, 2021

Greg Thomas

You’re Burnt Out

If you can’t make it a day without lashing out, without listening to other people’s opinions, without ignoring your team to focus on your work, chances are you’re burnt out. Note: Not that you are approaching being burnt out, but you are burnt out. The tell in being burnt out isn’t in the quality of work that you deliver (we’ll see that later on), it’s in how you treat the people around you. It’s a simple test, one we don’t like to admit our score on. If your score is low, it’s time for a break. If you’re leading someone

November 3, 2021

Greg Thomas

Delivery Dates and the Dream

If your delivery dates are more dream than reality, you have a problem. It means there is a disconnect, a huge one between what your team is focused on and what they are being asked for. If I’m in a meeting and I start to see this happen, a small voice starts going off in my head – “No, no, no, no, no” – and that’s the warning sign (simple as it may be) that there is a disconnect. Delivery dates should be attainable and they should be achievable. Sure everyone needs to give a little push at the end

November 2, 2021

Greg Thomas

Mad Scrambles

Mad Scrambles happen when “something” big is happening. Not everyone has a good idea of what the “something” is, what it means or what the impact on the work is. In short, the team all has a different view of what it is to be done. As a result, the team starts going in various directions doing what they think is right to fix that something which ends in everyone going in different directions (i.e., the scramble). The mad part occurs when we throw in a delivery date or a metric that needs to be met as not only are

November 1, 2021

Greg Thomas

Blocked

The blocked state is the one and only state that everyone looks at. Because they know it’s bad. They know something is wrong. They know something is broken. But they don’t know what, so they ask questions. They seek to learn more. They want to understand and talk about. Too bad we don’t talk about all states this way, but we’ll start with blocked.

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