Blog

February 12, 2016

Greg Thomas

What changes when we stop letting Failure happen?

When we are young, it’s all about standing up, falling down, standing up again, falling down again, over and over and over again.  At some age, we stop doing this, we worry that with all that falling down people are going to start to think that it is all we do, despite standing back up.  Then later in life we celebrate those that fall down, stand back up, fall down, stand back up again.  So then we get back into that mode, again, of accepting failure is good. What changed? Approaching this from the viewpoint of an individual (i.e., not

February 11, 2016

Greg Thomas

It’s not the Tools

I can’t do this without new Tool x. If only we had this software everything would be perfect. After a practice, where I felt like I fell 10 times on the ice, I went to get changed thinking my skates MUST be dull – it can’t be me – I could not have been THAT bad. Turns out the skates were fine, both edges were sharp, but the skater was dull 🙂 It’s so easy to go to a conference or watch a video on YouTube and think “YES” – the answer to our problems, by that piece of software

February 10, 2016

Greg Thomas

I’ll Know it what I see It

Said the teacher to the student when the student asked what the answer to the math question was. Said the doctor to the patient when the patient wanted to know the specifics of their open-heart surgery. Said the Territory Manager to his sales team when asked what targets they were aiming for this year. Said the Stakeholder to the developer when asked what do you want me to build. Software Development is series of ongoing iterations and cycles with a goal towards constant, continuous improvement to building a great product.  But without the proper goals and direction in mind before the building

February 9, 2016

Greg Thomas

Do What you Don’t Want To Do

A few weeks ago, while I stood completely exhausted, huffing and puffing for air (and not alone) while at an early morning hockey practice, our coach said to us all quite succinctly… “Why are you always practicing what you can do and not what you can’t do?” What we can do is the easy stuff, the stuff we’ve gotten better at over the years, the stuff that we can do in our sleep but still when we get to the office is the stuff we dive into first because we can do it, we know how to do it, we

February 8, 2016

Greg Thomas

The Evolution of Project Delivery by Peanuts

Assume the evolution of Project Delivery as told by Lucy and Charlie Brown. Project Start The request for help in delivery of something special. Project Agreement Where all parties agree on the delivery of the project. Project Preparation Where all efforts are investing in delivering the project. Project Misstep Where, despite our best efforts, a piece of the project pie was missed resulting in a miss fire. Project Realization Where we have that “AHA” moment of what was missed and now have to start all over again. But this never happens. Full credit to Charles Schultz and Peanuts Cartoons.