Articles for category: Leadership

December 24, 2021

Greg Thomas

Tools Do Not Create Culture

Tools, scripts, processes – they do the things you don’t want to do in your day-to-day delivery.  They automate the simply easy stuff that you should be on auto-pilot for. But never has anyone credited the performance script, the database tuner, the DevOps customizations for the release of a product, or changes in your team culture.  They are meant to take the easiest loads off your shoulders so you can focus on the big things; Are we getting enough code coverage? Do we have ample load? Have we gone through all scenarios? Do we understand what the customer needs? That’s

December 20, 2021

Greg Thomas

Interviewing for Tomorrow

When interviewing someone, whether it’s a small or big company, I always come back to one thought – “What will they be like tomorrow?” When we grow outside of this shoebox? When our product scales? When the team gets bigger? Will they be able to grow with us?  Will they be able to lead with us? Will they be there with us tomorrow? This is the question that always nags at the back of my head every time I interview.

December 18, 2021

Greg Thomas

Your Job Description

Most likely it’s evolved. Beyond what you started doing, beyond what was in the paperwork. Perhaps what is leaps and bounds from where you started two years ago where everyone was elbows apart and now you are miles away from each other. Despite all that, do you know what your job description is? I’m not talking about the one that everyone can pull up from the company website and go “here, this is what I do” or the one that you can download from a job posting where the only comparison is the title. I’m talking about what you do,

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

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