Articles for category: Drive

November 30, 2020

Greg Thomas

It’s Rally Time

We rally when we’re down, when we’re weak, when we’re feeling kicked so hard that we can’t get up. We look for that “other” gear but can’t find it (where is it? No one knows?) And then you find it. You find it in the weirdest of places. It might be that bug that you’ve been holding onto, the two of you starting at each other from across your keyboard. It might be a User story no one wants to look at or a design problem you have been struggling with. Whatever it is, all it takes is one thing

November 29, 2020

Greg Thomas

Virtual Design

How are you designing solutions with your team these days? Are you designing solutions with your team? Or are you handing it off to them to and hoping they figure it out on their own? If you don’t have the latest or greatest you might need to start getting a little creative in what you do; Building a template in PowerPoint or even paint to get your point across. Augmenting your requirements with workflows to more clearly illustrate your point. Recording yourself trying to figure out the issue or having a demo break. Sharing the whiteboard in a meeting. Whatever

November 24, 2020

Greg Thomas

What makes it complete?

Not when it runs. Not when it does what’s in the requirements. Not when it doesn’t break the unit tests. Not when QA passes it. But when the client says – “that’s cool.” Then you know it’s complete, everything else up until that point is simply a beta.

November 14, 2020

Greg Thomas

Yes, But what do you want?

This is the question that many of us can’t answer. What do we actually want? We look at user stories and features, what is in the backlog, what was discussed in a meeting and we assume that is “what the user wants”. But it really isn’t. How many times have you built something, thinking it was the right thing to build only to have an end user go – “that’s not what I was looking for.” It’s not until that you ask someone – “What do you want?” – that you get the answer you need, unencumbered by technology, domain

November 10, 2020

Greg Thomas

Building Habits

They start small and when they hit their peak, they build momentum until they become unstoppable. Since April, I’ve been working on a few. They aren’t peaking at this point, but like everything, I track my effort and they are growing at a rate which shows progress. Every few months I push it a little more, only because I want to see what I can do but mainly so I can stabilize a habit at that level before moving onto the next one. There are times I miss my target, that’s why I don’t raise the target each month, what’s