Articles for category: Leadership

December 17, 2021

Greg Thomas

What you Deliver

What is it that you deliver to your customers?  Your team?  Your CEO?  Your clients? Writing code, building test cases, writing requirements – those aren’t what you deliver – they are the output of what you deliver. Here are some ideas of what you can deliver (written in the I format) I deliver scalable, performant solutions. I deliver software that takes a licking, keeps on ticking, and comes back to life when everything around it fails. I deliver teams that can build anything. I deliver guidance, mentoring, coaching to junior team members so they can one day lead this company.

December 16, 2021

Greg Thomas

Reusing Code

Let this picture sink in.  I don’t know who made it but it’s perfect. If you want every possible test scenario run, then you should be prepared to pay for every random test scenario. The problem isn’t in the code we write (that needs to grow and iterate and develop) but what we are willing to pay for it.  If you are using something beyond its means, beyond what it was originally intended to do because it’s “Free” that is not just the coder’s problem but yours too. I once wrote a piece of code that was meant as a

December 13, 2021

Greg Thomas

Where the Faults Are

Every team has its fault lines, a divide where multiple faults come together.  If you live near the fault line you know it exists.  The further you get away from it, the less important it seems or the potential for harm exists because it is “over there” and not near you. At any point in time, it’s the role of the Dev Manager to know what faults will trigger these lines to break and fall down upon one another.  Because if it does happen, they are the person on the ground looking to repair their damage and help their team

December 11, 2021

Greg Thomas

A three minute call is all it took

No one should ever be part of a call that is delivered in this fashion.  Your company should have all the breakers in place to ensure this never happens. Hopefully the last of these we ever hear of, but here’s our take on Remotely Prepared – https://www.upsidedownoffice.com/podcast/this-weeks-3-minute-mass-zoom-firing And here is one of many articles that references this debacle. All I can say, is something of this magnitude should never be phoned in, and this is what it felt like for these employees.  

December 1, 2021

Greg Thomas

I’m Here for the Checkboxes

The last thing anyone wants to hear at a meeting – someone is here solely to say we had the meeting. If this is the case, show them how to create a form, how to track that boxes are being checked and iterated over. Do anything and everything, so that this statement is not uttered in your meeting when you are trying to lead people to work through a problem and deliver. Your people need (and deserve) leadership, not checkboxes.

© 2025 Rambli by Greg Thomas. All rights reserved.