Articles for category: Drive

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 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.

October 31, 2021

Greg Thomas

We Keep Switching Context

If you’re looking for a way to slow down your team. Have them switch between delivery work and anything else. Have them come to meetings they don’t need to be at. Have them switch between different technology platforms for communications. Give them unclear guidance on what to do. Leave “things” up to them but don’t outline your expectations. It sounds like things we shouldn’t be doing, but we do them all the time, even though we know the result.

October 28, 2021

Greg Thomas

Ready vs Done

What’s the difference? Ready means it’s ready for someone to look at and see what it looks like. Done means no one needs to look at it. One involves testing, the other states that testing has been completed. If your team doesn’t know the difference, it could be your biggest problem in knowing what is complete.

October 26, 2021

Greg Thomas

What goes into a Meeting

If you want to have good results from a meeting, you need to put the good preparation into one to make it a success. And this goes for everyone in the meeting – presenter, attendees, listeners – if any of those people don’t come prepared for the meeting – there is no point in them attending. What’s the first ingredient that goes into a good meeting? People.