Articles for category: Leadership

August 5, 2016

Greg Thomas

Sports and Leaders

If I had the time during the interview process to take someone out and play 21 with them, shoot 9 holes of golf or insert favourite quick game of sport here, I would do that. You learn so much in watching people play sports when they don’t feel like they have anything holding them back.  In addition, you learn how they approach all those questions that you are really asking and whether it is for show or how they really behave. Are they really fair? Do they play with heart? Good loser/bad winner? What about the banter between the physical

July 27, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Airplane Test

From time to time, I do the Airplane test. It’s not a difficult one, there is no written exam, and the results are rarely ever shared with anyone. If anything, it is a level-set on where I am and what needs to be done. The Airplane Test Step 1: Take every person in your team/organization that you work with. Step 2: Thing of how you would do in building a plane. What kind of plane would you build?  Would it be technically sound, would it fly at sub-sonic speeds, would it have landing gear on it. The easy part is

July 21, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Aftermath of Breaking the Mold

Take a bowl, the mold if you will and drop it on the floor. Congratulations you just broke the mold. Now, start picking up all the pieces that no longer fit together because of cracks here and there and pieces that are so small they cannot be added back into creating the mold. Now, take all those pieces and create the new mold from what you have gathered. It’s not perfect is it?   It has jagged little edges that will need to be smoothed out, it has bumps and crevices where the good ideas used to roll down.  You

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

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