Ask someone when they are going to have something done and their immediate answer is going to be “In a sec”, “In a few minutes”, etc, etc. Translation – “I am so good I will have all my work done within 2 minutes and you will bow before my glory”. Perhaps not quite, but you get the idea, we want to impress someone with how fast you can get something done while ignoring how long it…
On a recent vacation, I had the pleasure of driving through an incredible Canadian Landmark in Cape Breton – The Chabot Trail. If you’ve never been, it’s an amazing drive going from 0 to 500 metres elevation with an incredible view of the ocean. It can also be, at times, incredibly nerve-wracking and white-knuckling as you maneuver yourself up and down the tight mountain turns. As we were doing so, we were relying mostly on…
Sounds cliched right? Well it is. I am constantly amazed by the paradigm shift in some people’s contribution to a problem when they are the tasked as the owner of it vs when they are now a bystander looking in, i.e., part of the gallery. Sure being the owner of a problem, a particularly critical one, is not always fun, but it is work that has to be done and someone needs to take the…
I’ve written about this before, in other places, but it bears mentioning again in case you have forgotten. When it’s a visit to a customer site to address any of the following; Release a new patch or version of your software. Demo the latest vaporware your company is putting together. Meet with end-users to identify their requirements. Present your roadmap for the next year. Train the users on how to implement Feature X. Troubleshoot problems with the…
These are the famous last words of a developer who is hoping that what exists will solve your problem. They might not fully understand your problem – where the should comes in – but they have some pretty solid confidence in their code in which it will work. It’s hard to go through your career as a developer and never utter this statement – I have done it myself many times at the end of…