Do you have an ETA? Do you have an SLA? I’m not talking about company-wide time-to-respond options, I’m talking about your own internal options that govern your own operations and how you respond to people. Is it a knee-jerk response? Is it last minute? Is it immediate acknowledgment? How do you respond and how do you want to respond is what matters and it’s all up to you.
What is your line in stand? The hill you’ll die on. Your last straw. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) be as dramatic as any of the above, but knowing your threshold, your limit, is what it will help you when things go wrong. When things are going bad, we enter into the “one more” syndrome – where incrementally “one more” thing will not hurt us until one day we wake up burnt out and overloaded. Know…
Standards we follow, they ensure everyone is implementing repeatable work that can be shared amongst the team. I.e., we don’t need to use 7 libraries, we can use 2 and be great with it. Within those 2 libraries, be creative, come up with new ideas, and don’t be fearful of things going wrong. It’s in our creativity that our code and our work improve and grow our team. If you’re leading a team, encourage creativity,…
Recently I was having a discussion with a team on a document they produced. Before I launched into my feedback, I wanted to make sure I understood what the goals and purpose of the document were. “What do you mean our goals?” What do you want to achieve with this document? After a bit of back and forth we got to what the purpose and goal of the document was and that helped me understand…
Home, the office, the coffee shop. You’re surrounded by noise. I bought a decent pair of noise-canceling headphones over the summer (mainly because I was FINALLY tired of having wired headphones and decided to go wireless). I love the moment when I put them on and it cancels out all ambient noise. Sometimes I don’t even play music, I just work in a bubble. It’s tricky at first because you’re constantly checking your phone to…