“It’s not that I mind filling out another survey, it’s more that we haven’t heard anything about the other one we just filled out.” The comment had no snarky tone or accusatory subtext. It was meant as a simple matter-of-fact comment on what I had just asked the team to do.
It’s 3 a.m. You’re wide awake. You’re having a conversation in your mind with a colleague, a boss, a client. Again. The same one. Seemingly on repeat for the past few days, weeks, or months even. Barring some intractable factors, it appears it’s time to transition that hard conversation from inner monologue to outer dialogue.
Most of us love a good personality assessment. They’re usually fun, can help us understand ourselves better and, at times, may even have implementable tips for us. But, there are unspoken pitfalls that we need to watch out for.
Legacy code is everywhere, and it's here to stay. Anything that someone else has left behind is their legacy. After a while, what they left behind might not play nicely with new code. Several key issues can come from legacy codebases, ranging from alarming security vulnerabilities to frequent bugs and plummeting developer productivity.
Nintendo started out producing handmade playing cards. Netflix was selling and renting DVDs by mail. Starbucks used to only sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment (no brewed coffee or delicious handcrafted espresso drinks!).
In my role as Director of Operations at Corgibytes, one of my responsibilities is automating and optimizing our day-to-day tasks and workflow. As a result, one of the common patterns of my work is gathering, manipulating, and presenting data of various sorts. Thankfully, much of the data I’m gathering is accessible via API, which means I get to use one of my favorite technical tools: Postman.
If you sent me an email today, you’d get an autoresponder that starts with a quote from Jan Tschichold. What better quote to feature during my own “White Space” time in December and January, during which I’ve purposely limited my meeting schedule and am only checking email once a day.
As our blogging efforts increased this past quarter, our Lead Content Whisperer, Jo, requested a mechanism to publish blog posts in advance. I was happy to volunteer to build a simple solution using the tools we already had in place.
One of the most important expectations we have for all team members is that he or she keep a daily journal. While I was skeptical when we first started this practice, now I can’t imagine our team functioning without it.
Estimates are useful. They help business owners predict and control their budget, scope, and timelines. Right? Well, not always. Over the years, we’ve learned that there are some projects where estimates work great and others where it’s a disaster.