Articles for category: Drive

November 13, 2019

Greg Thomas

Learning the Next New Thing

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 you learn, how you plan it is up to you and as long as you are learning you are probably doing more than most in your industry.

November 7, 2019

Greg Thomas

Why People Don’t Like it When you Work Remote

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 a look at the code stop what you are doing, point at your screen, and use you to get them to the answer. There are probably more reasons, but that’s a

November 6, 2019

Greg Thomas

The Show of Force Meeting

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 of what the meeting was initially about is already lost because whatever it was for has now turned into something else altogether.

October 24, 2019

Greg Thomas

Avoid Empire Building

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 are trying to resolve, realizing what order of work needs to be done, etc, etc. It’s the “stuff” that goes into creating an empire. When I say “bodies” I mean the extra bodies,

October 11, 2019

Greg Thomas

Stories over Dates

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 it can fit in the date. The only caveat to changing the story is to make sure that it is still a story