Learning something new will never go away. Your industry will change, the people will change, the path you are on will change, everything will change. You will never be done learning. It doesn’t mean you have to spend a full day at work and then another full day in the evening learning to “stay on top of things”. It does mean you need to realize there is a path to get to what...
Because it forces them to consider their thoughts, try to figure it out themselves, put their request into one clear sentence that will convey the idea that uses as little time as possible. Because it forces efficiency in problem-solving. When you’re there, in the same room, all that efficiency goes out the door because they can talk to you for 10 minutes about the weather, ask you to take...
The Show of Force Meeting is an exercise in seeing who can get the most people to the table where only two people talk. It’s either a showing of how many people believe in my idea or an opportunity to show how many “influencers” you can get to the table. In either case, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. If you’re having to gather forces for a meeting, the goal...
Empire Building happens when we focus on building everything around us, getting all the right laptops and tablets, all the best tables, all the perks, all the bodies, all the chairs, all the everything that goes along with building an empire except doing the one thing that truly matters to building an empire. The requirements, i.e., the work that needs to be done, understanding the problem you...
Dates are great to hit, but if you get there with nothing, with poor quality, with lackluster user support, with no excitement from your team. Did you really hit a date? Better, to focus on the Story, what are we delivering, what are we giving users, what are they getting. If the Story is going to take too long to deliver in the date you have in mind, then perhaps you need to change the Story so...