Articles for category: Leadership

November 25, 2019

Greg Thomas

Progress Bar Magic

Progress Bars in software exist only to keep us entertained while “something” happens. In many cases, they are incorrect and based on the best guess of what might be happening at a particular point in time. They are guesstimates of a calculation that looks at the work to be performed, adds in some variance for connection speed and comes up with a timed estimate for when work will be done. The best project bars keep updating all the time so you know something is being done. The worst ones never change because they are running on the wrong thread and

November 21, 2019

Greg Thomas

Sometimes, you need to Act Like It

No one is born into a role. Everyone wants to a police officer at the age of two, but no one actually is. Just like no one tells you the day you are going to lead a team. It just kind of happens, maybe you had an inkling something was going to change, maybe it was a formal promotion to being a manager but now there it is in front of you – you are a Leader. It’s not easy stepping into a new role, it’s always scary, even if it’s just one set of eyeballs staring back at you.

November 19, 2019

Greg Thomas

Serious Technical Debt

I live in a city where a certain LRT implementation has gone off the rails. It’s not going well. One day it will recover, but until then, all the problems we are currently encountering will continue as we all hold on for the growing pains that are sure to come with it. That’s where Technical Debt hurts us – not in the code being old, obsolete or hard to maintain – but in the people, the team having to use it. A local radio show host made the suggestion that we all as developers have one faced with a hill

November 15, 2019

Greg Thomas

The More You Invest

Fast forward to 2:45 – where Ramsay says to the chef – “They more work and effort you put in, the more it hurts when it goes wrong.” – I’m paraphrasing out some of the pieces about food but the sentiment is exactly the same in anything you are doing – coding, writing, sports, whatever it is. The more you put in, the more it hurts when it goes wrong. I love this line because it perfectly captures on line that we must cross between investing wholly in what we are doing and giving up and when the going gets

November 4, 2019

Greg Thomas

The Local Pizza Shop

Will never die. It is one of the few vestiges, where you can go in, place your order and when you leave, it’s not the person who took your order who says thank you, but everyone behind the counter, each and every one of them saying thank you to you for purchasing their product. Run your business like the local pizza shop where everyone on your team recognizes how important the relationship of business to consumer is and all it takes is two words to make it that much stronger.

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