Probably not. No one is ever ready for what is coming their way, if they were, they would be doing it. The usual response to this question is usually – “I guess” or “Okay” or “I think”. Unless you’ve done this task 17 times before, no one can ever say for sure that they are ready with 100% confidence. But that’s not the question we’re asking whether you’re ready to complete the task, what we’re…
Training is easy when someone schedules it for us. It’s even easier when someone shows us what to do as a group. It’s beyond simple when we have someone standing side-by-side with us to correct everything we do along the way. But it’s much, much, much harder to do when we’re on our own when there is no schedule and no progress bar – it’s just you and whatever it is you are doing, working…
Everything. Testing is everything. If you aren’t testing then you aren’t shipping. Consider that the next time you are trying to squeeze your QA team down from four months to three months to two weeks in the hope that “everything works”. Hint: It won’t, but that’s why we test.
I’m a big fan of doing demos on the fly. Fire up the compiler, and show people what you’ve done. They are meant to be exciting, exhilarating and the best forum in the world to get feedback on how you are doing. Whether you plan it or not, you should always show up ready to go. If you aren’t ready to go, push it off, an hour, a day (no more than a day) but…
Whenever I’m stuck on a piece of code I can’t get past or take a look at that one user story no one wants to work on or look at the daunting amount of email I have in my inbox I always ask myself that same question… Can you Lead the Army of One? This question takes on greater meaning when working with new developers that want to take on leadership roles (whether with people,…