Articles for category: Initiative

1 month ago

Greg Thomas

Onboarding Quickly is a Skill

On any project, there is a point where adding more people will slow down the project as you seek to onboard them to the work everyone else is doing. It takes time to bring a new person up to speed – sometimes estimated in months when it needs to be a few days or weeks. If you are someone who comes up with a toolbox, learns in advance where the project is at and where the team is having trouble, and knows the tech stack (or is early learning it), your onboarding can drop to those mythical days and low-cost

1 month ago

Greg Thomas

The Complaint Department

All complaints are in, and wow, there are a lot. The complaints are easy; anyone can write a complaint about anything. I don’t like the grip on my chainsaw (I know nothing about grips). I wish my car’s cupholders were 3 inches back and could hold 3 drinks instead of 2 (when ordering for the family). Many cool products and inventions come from complaints – watching what people are building with 3d printers to solve the above problems and many more is incredible to watch. You can keep chirping at the Complaint Department, or pick one up and make it

2 months ago

Greg Thomas

Various Ideas

Take all your ideas. Write them down. Order them. Prioritize what matters to you. Put them front and center in your face. Pick one. And ship. (Don’t stop at putting them in your face, this is the last step before it becomes real, where many stop, pick and go).

2 months ago

Greg Thomas

Too Much To Do

Overload today? Not a bad problem; tomorrow you might not be. What is your “too much,” and someone else’s “too much” might be completely different, and as a result, we have different levels of what being overloaded is. It’s not good to have “Too Much To Do” all the time; that’s a sign you need help, and the team needs to grow. But in the short term, it’s a sign people trust your opinion and thoughts and want to see more from you. Don’t let that opportunity slip away.

2 months ago

Greg Thomas

Filling in Gaps

There are some days when my role is to fill in gaps. We don’t have “X,” and no one knows “X”? Looks like I’m spending some time learning “X” today. I have zero complaints about filling gaps, because I think it’s where you can get the best opportunity to learn a new thing and figure out how it connects to everything else you do. It can seem stressful; it’s akin to someone dropping a stack of files on your desk – “Here, figure it out”. That’s okay, we need more of “Here, figure it out”.

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