Articles for category: Initiative

December 11, 2019

Greg Thomas

We STILL don't want to write it down.

After all this time. After all these methodologies. After all these books. After all these meetings. We still don’t want to do the simplest of tasks to convey and idea from one person to the other. We still don’t want to write it down. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re rushed, we don’t want to, the methodology told us we didn’t have to or it’s because we no longer know how. Whatever the reason, we aren’t doing it anymore and on the simplest of projects, it will kill what your team will deliver. Ask the team that delivers early

December 6, 2019

Greg Thomas

One Word

That is what it came down to… one word that ended… well it ended a writing streak that lasted 240 days. A streak where I turned in pages every day writing about anything and everything, some with focus, some without but all of it with a purpose. The goal is to write a minimum set of words day each to get the streak going. I got up to 240 (ish) days and then missed out on it by one word. One word. So now, it’s back to the beginning and starting all over again. I’d be lying if I said

December 4, 2019

Greg Thomas

But in what Format?

When the format is more important than the content of what we are creating, we have started down a path that is hard to recover from. It’s hard to recover because the writer worries more about the look than the content because that is what they have learned they will be judged on first before anything else. As the adage goes, Content is the King (and the Queen, and the rook, and the bishop and the knight… only the pawns are the look). A better way to adopt this problem set, to get people focused on content before looks. Sit

November 29, 2019

Greg Thomas

Late Game Solutions

When you’ve committed to a solution and are midway through the project, you’re in, there is no out (unless it is so bad that everyone is throwing up their hands, toss keyboards over their walls and generally ready to storm the cloud in the hopes of pulling it down). But you’re not there, you’re working with a solution that might not be perfect but it’s 90% of what you need, so sure there is some work to do, but you aren’t dying, the project will survive and people are happy. So in these cases – don’t get frustrated and say

November 26, 2019

Greg Thomas

Everyone Loves a Good Chart

And why not it shows progress, it shows movement, it shows direction, where things are headed and what our goals are. Except when the data is bad. When the data is bad, all it is is a picture with arrows.