Articles for category: Delivery

January 14, 2025

Greg Thomas

Weather Changes

Changes in weather, significant changes, can drastically affect the course of your day. A little rain here, some sunshine there, a bit of snow – they are all okay in proportion to what you are currently working through. But a 50cm dump you had no idea was coming your way? Plus 45C heat? That is significant, that changes things, that throws all your plans out the window, and forces you to create and find new ones. We all know the weather can change our plans because it’s “there” and we all know about it. What’s the weather in your organization

January 10, 2025

Greg Thomas

But when does the Pilot End?

This is the big question, when does the pilot end? Is it going on forever (i.e., the Beta program that lasts 2 years)? Does it end after 3 months? When does it become the “now normal” and not the hanger-on of ideas? What defines its success? What metrics matter? If you’re asking these questions while you are in the pilot, while you are doing the work, while it is happening, you are asking them at the wrong time.  These are the questions that need to be answered BEFORE the pilot starts, BEFORE anything happens so that when you get to

January 9, 2025

Greg Thomas

The Point of Standups

The point of standups is to hear what others are doing. It’s a cue for what they are doing, for others to listen and jump in on. If you’re not listening, you’re not participating, you’re not there. It’s the listeners that make standups succeed, not the talkers. Listen.

January 7, 2025

Greg Thomas

This Connects to that and then Something Happens…

“This connects to that and then I think it does something over here, or something else does something, but then there is another system that works here…” If that’s the introduction to what you’re working on, get ready for two things to happen; Pad your estimates into next week because you will spend more time working with people to figure out what is going on rather than actually working on the problem. Change what you are fixing, unless you are going in there and doing File >> New Project, you are not going to be able to rewrite the world.

January 6, 2025

Greg Thomas

Defending Your Effort

You don’t need to defend your effort to anyone else. The results might not always be there, but those are your results. No one else’s. Your effort is your own. You’ll know when it’s not enough and you’ll get to be the judge when it isn’t. Everyone else is just noise.