Blog

July 29, 2021

Greg Thomas

What Worries me about Going Back to the Office

Apart from the normal health restrictions, there is only one thing that worries me about going back to the office. That all the good habits we developed over the course of the last 18 – 24 months will be thrown away and we’ll go back to our old ways of doing things. Not hiring the best worker, but the best worker around here. Forcing people into meeting rooms that don’t need to be there. Awkward gatherings that no one wants to attend. Less empathy, more cohersion. Barriers that existed for many will rise up once again. I hope it doesn’t

July 28, 2021

Greg Thomas

Leading Worklife Balance by Example

A few weeks ago we had a great interview with Rekha Rao-Mayya on our Season 4 topic of Worklife Balance. Rekha has had the unique experience of moving from Microsoft to Amazon during the pandemic and some of the lessons she has learned along the way were truly interesting to hear. One that resonated with me was leading by example when it comes to work life balance and how she has had to force herself to embody this mantra by living what she says to her team. It’s no longer enough to say – “I’ll keep everyone off you team,

July 27, 2021

Greg Thomas

The Platform Doesn’t Do it

Then here are your options; Find a new platform. Code a workaround. You can code anything, there is a myriad of languages and frameworks out there to do it. You can code anything. But going back to your user and saying “change what you are doing because we can’t do it” should be the last, final, dead stop resort only after you have exhausted all these other choices, not the first.

July 26, 2021

Greg Thomas

Who’s Running the Show?

If anyone on your team is asking this question, don’t get angry, don’t get bothered, don’t get mad at them. Take a moment to understand why they are feeling that way, what is missing from their narrative and what maybe you need to do (as the one running the show) to reinstill that confidence in them. If they are saying it to you, it means they care now it’s your turn to give them a reason to keep caring and keep investing the show.

July 25, 2021

Greg Thomas

Paper and Pen Beat Screen

They do, they always will. Sorry, you can’t beat them (am I really sorry)? The other day I had to review a list of client requirements and get together with them for a bunch of questions to figure out what was what. To date, everyone’s been sharing documents on a screen and we slowly plod through them as we make comments, discuss format, add in pieces, re-add in pieces. This is the new world of collaboration. For this particular meeting, I printed it all out, I marked it up on my own and what I needed to do. The next