I saw this picture the other day and it speaks volumes, not only for sports but for work as well. Your basics are what set you apart from everyone else. Knowing what they are is what makes you indispensable because then you can start focusing in on them, refining them, and making them stronger. But if you don’t know what your basics are, what your fundamentals are – then you’re just practicing everything, everywhere and…

Imagine your team builds houses akin to how they write code. Some questions to ask; How long would it stand the test of time? What issues would appear immediately? What would work well? Would it align with what your users wanted? Would it ship completed? Would it be finished early or late? You can come up with more/less questions, the point of the exercise isn’t to take your team down a notch – the goal…

There is a narrow space between an end user and the person building the requirements where sheer Nirvana for what is being created exists. Where what the user needs is properly laid out and what the requirement writer is able to fashion into a meaningful delivery that looks to all of their additional/base requirements they have. It’s like the pot at the end of the rainbow. Or if you met Snuffleupagus. Or when two incongruent…

Have you ever asked yourself? Have you ever asked your team? Have you ever set the expectations of your team for what you expect of them and what hear what they expect of you? Until you do, you’ll never know just what your meetings are missing. But we never want to ask, it’s easier to complain.

When learning new skills, you will experience new frustrations. If you give up, you will never get to growth. If you keep pushing forward, you will eventually get past the frustration point and you will experience growth. I’ve always called this point of frustration Craptivity, if you stick with it you’ll succeed and get better.  It won’t happen overnight, but it’s the sticking with it where everyone falls off. But it doesn’t matter how old…