Articles for category: Leadership

April 25, 2023

Greg Thomas

Build a Great Team and AI

Building a Great Team is about finding complementary pieces that make your group stronger than if they were alone. You don’t need 4 full-stack developers, you need two front-end, a middle, and a back-end developer – and you don’t need to full those requirements with four AIs hoping they crank out something that is amazing. Maybe not that precise mix but you get the idea, you don’t need drones, you need people, and you need perspectives and approaches that can grow your team. AI will never be a great team, it might be components, but it won’t be THE great

When Not to Change Your Process

At some point in a project, sprint, release, etc we have the process for what we are delivering mapped in our head and we are grinding on it.  We are tweaking as we go and it might not be perfect but it’s what we’re doing to get things out the door. We are under pressure, overwhelmed, and trying to keep everything together on a shoestring to get it out the door. As much as small tweaks and suggestions here and there could help make you more efficient, you’re not in the right headspace to hear them and it’s better to

Being the Calm in the Storm

Yes, your release is late. Yes, the bugs are piling up. Yes, you have code that needs to go out the door. Yes, your chats are blowing up with everyone and anyone messaging you. Getting angry, chippy, or frustrated doesn’t help the problem and doesn’t help your team. Be the calm within the storm. The release will go out, the more bugs that are found the better the quality, your code will see the light of day and your chats will die down when you get over this hump. Lead your team through it.

Setbacks and Blowbacks

Setbacks are minor disruptions in our plans to try something new. Blowbacks are the unintended consequences when someone comes down on us because our plan didn’t work. Setbacks are not equal to Blowbacks. We have the choice to recover from Setbacks, Blowbacks we have no control over (so stop worrying about them).

Be Your Team Culture

Don’t talk about it. Don’t do a post on it. Don’t evangelize it. Don’t youtube it, instagram it, snap it, tiktok it. Definitely keep it off of LinkedIn. Just be it, live it every day, and embolden your path and those around you. Remind yourself every morning what it is, and hold yourself to that standard. You won’t get as many likes, you might not get people flocking to your job portals and it probably won’t make the news but it will matter to the people it needs to matter to the most – your team, and that’s all that