Blog

June 30, 2016

Greg Thomas

Applying Version Control to People

Wouldn’t it be great if we could apply the concepts of Version Control to people? Label your best days so you can always back, do a GET and see why everything worked so flawlessly? Forget what you did 3 months ago and why?  Go back into the HISTORY and read the comment – “oh yeah, this is why I had to do this”. Take the best parts of people and MERGE them together et voila – the perfect team? Having a bad day, BRANCH that attitude over to here outside of my main workspace so I can focus on what is

June 29, 2016

Greg Thomas

Can you handle the Change?

Should I apply when my skills don’t quite line up to what is being asked? I have .NET, they want Java? I do Development but want to be a QA? I’m more Agile than Waterfall? Do you have an aptitude to change and learn without disparaging that which you don’t know? If yes, apply, if not, probably not the best idea for you because you know it is going to be different, you know there are going to be hurdles and hills to climb and you know it is going to take you out of your comfort zone. So before

June 28, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Role of the Team Lead

Continuing on from The Road to Team Lead it’s amazing to see all the different job descriptions out there for a Software Team Lead – some ranging from “Super Coder that leads the coding” to “Full Blown Manager”. With so many confusing descriptions that differ from organization to organization, it makes it a little tricky to understand what you are getting into. My thoughts on what the role of Team Lead encompasses; 50% coding – the team still needs you to be contributing to code and let’s be honest, you still want to be contributing to code Team Onboarding – this

June 27, 2016

Greg Thomas

Slow it Down

I sincerely enjoy watching any sport where a single athlete can change the tone of a game in a matter of seconds and slow it down to their pace.  Where all the heightened pressure and urgency that was there, when there was still plenty of time left in the game, has now come down a notch.  The emotion has been tossed out the window and now they have made it their game. Where there was urgency to make something happen, there is now importance to make something happen… not right now… but right. That ability to shift a player, a

June 25, 2016

Greg Thomas

You Don’t Know Everything

And never will you. You will know a great deal, you will be a sponge, you will learn everything you can but you will always need someone to fill in the gaps for you.  Whether it is a customer explaining that final set of requirements that you never understood, or the junior developer that knows the 18 steps to configure and deploy that complicated hotfix or the Product Owner who has a better handle on your competitors because they have gone out and met them. You cannot know everything. The sooner you realize, you don’t know everything, the sooner you