Blog

August 28, 2024

Greg Thomas

The Return of the Red Herring

There are two ways to shut down the constant stream of Red Herrings. Acknowledge their issue, and ask them if they want to run with it. Ask if that should be the team’s primary focus instead of what they are here to discuss. Ask them for their plan to resolve the issue. A few things will happen. They will not want to run with it. They will not want to change the team’s focus. They will not have a plan – if you stick with this line over and over, perhaps they will start showing up with a plan –

August 27, 2024

Greg Thomas

Give them No Excuses

If they don’t like your ideas, your implementation, what you bring to the table. Don’t give them any excuses. Implement it all. It’s hard to ignore the evidence when it’s working right in front of you.

August 26, 2024

Greg Thomas

Time vs Accomplishment

I’m more of a task-based person – I like to check boxes on things I’ve completed. I did this task, I accomplished something, Huzza I got an achievement. Measuring success by time accrued is harder for me to work through – I did some stuff, I didn’t figure it out, but I made progress, am I closer to the end, I don’t know, when will this end, I don’t know, how long does this go on for? Writing the two out is exactly how I feel when accomplishing work by time or by task – I’m sure I just gave

August 25, 2024

Greg Thomas

Less Superficial Tickets, More Implementation

You know the question, go find the answer. Tickets are good for work that is going to take more than 30 minutes to an hour. Anything else? Do you need a ticket? Don’t get me wrong, I’m big on describing my work so people can know what I’m doing.  If it’s anything less than 30 mins, I group it together. I don’t create tickets that say – “Apply Bold”. If I’m working on Task X, and I get asked a question, I’ll answer the question, not create a ticket to answer the question at a later date.  Presumably, you need

August 24, 2024

Greg Thomas

What Timers Really do

Timers are great, they give you a unit of time to get work done, and then you break.  You zone in and you focus in on that work to be delivered and voila you get it done. It’s incredible that the productivity hack of our lifetime boils down to tomatoes and timers that give you a block of time to get work done (I have a few of my own and I use the Google timer at many a project). But here’s the real value in all these timers (and it’s not the break) – it’s when you go over.