Articles for category: Leadership

June 28, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Role of the Team Lead

Continuing on from The Road to Team Lead it’s amazing to see all the different job descriptions out there for a Software Team Lead – some ranging from “Super Coder that leads the coding” to “Full Blown Manager”. With so many confusing descriptions that differ from organization to organization, it makes it a little tricky to understand what you are getting into. My thoughts on what the role of Team Lead encompasses; 50% coding – the team still needs you to be contributing to code and let’s be honest, you still want to be contributing to code Team Onboarding – this

June 27, 2016

Greg Thomas

Slow it Down

I sincerely enjoy watching any sport where a single athlete can change the tone of a game in a matter of seconds and slow it down to their pace.  Where all the heightened pressure and urgency that was there, when there was still plenty of time left in the game, has now come down a notch.  The emotion has been tossed out the window and now they have made it their game. Where there was urgency to make something happen, there is now importance to make something happen… not right now… but right. That ability to shift a player, a

June 24, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Road to Team Lead

Typically in software development, you become/apply/promoted to a Team Lead position based on your work and performance as a developer.  Which is why it is so critical when hiring developers that you look at the Leadership Quotient that they bring to the table. The day after a promotion to Team Lead is entirely awkward, whereas less than 24 hours ago you were only responsible for your code, now you all of a sudden you are responsible for; Projects People Performance All things that are not related to your performance anymore but instead the rest of your Team’s. This post is

June 23, 2016

Greg Thomas

Developer Leadership Quotient

Quotient – The number of times one quantity is contained in another. The need to hire someone in your organization is typically driven by the needs of the organization today – we have projects to complete, those projects must be completed to ensure the success of the organization, we cannot grow without the successful completion of these products. If you hire for the “now” you will most likely achieve the goal of completing the project that needed to be done today but you probably have not hired for to be able to grow tomorrow. In simpler terms – think about

June 22, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Leaving Tell

There are many tells to when we all think someone is going to leave and there is no right “tell” as we all have our own version of Spidey Sense. But here it is for me – when someone gets quiet and stops offering new ideas – you know something is amiss.  When they would rather not partake in the discussion but instead go along with it.  When their previous mantra of change has now been replaced with a mantra of “okay” you know that the passion has left the building. Now is the time to get worried. Are they forgone?

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