I was at the veterinarian’s office the other day and I noticed a chart on the wall. It was a “Cat Pain Scale Rubric”, where you look at things like their eyes, ears, whiskers, tail, and shoulders, and based upon an eye chart assign a point score, then add the whole score up to determine […]
I just saw this question posted on Reddit, “What makes a good senior developer? Specifically in terms of their soft skills.” I started thinking about what my answer would be, if I were asked this question. (Of course, this assumes I’m a good senior developer, but let’s assume for a moment I am. Bear with […]
I’ve done a lot of interviews and hiring in my career, and so like most people who have this experience, I have my own library of questions I tend to ask. I was conducting an interview the other day and I asked a common one, along the lines of “Is it your preference to have […]
Seems like I’ve been talking a lot lately about data, metrics, KPIs, and how that impacts your strategy, vision, and decision making. Well, here’s more. Here’s something I’ve witnessed that, in retrospect, is pretty fascinating. One time I was part of a team that covered an extremely large territory as a specialized service provider. We […]
I made this comment a few blog posts ago: they are constantly trying to pivot everyone (also valid and true, for a variety of complex reasons). …and I wanted to follow up on it. A super common complaint that I hear from staff developers and engineers is how their manager is constantly changing their priorities […]
I made this statement a few blog posts ago: …they are not properly measuring the correct things in their standardized reporting (very valid and probably true, because figuring out what to measure is incredibly hard) I wanted to talk more about this, because this is key. What SHOULD we be measuring? How can we be […]
I’ve noticed what seems like another super common trait with people, and it is that they have to know all the details of everything. Its like humans don’t like to not know about how something is done or works. I suppose that’s why there are so many popular documentaries and books about “The Secret Inner […]
I saw a social media post the other day. I wish I could find it, because I don’t want to take credit for this, but someone made a great point about “personal productivity” versus “organizational productivity”. Let’s look at this from a different approach. When you are a staff developer, your focus is on your […]
So most people I know at work have the usual, “I’m really busy!” mantra. And I get it. I am too. We all are. But one thing I’ve learned fairly recently is that my busyness stress is sometimes misguided. Let me explain. I have tasks that are directly assigned to me, in terms of documents […]
So I have something I call the “Pragmatic Overlay”. Its the concept that you can have an idealized vision or plan for whatever you are wanting to do. But, and this usually only comes based on experience, you have to have an element of pragmatism to it. Some simple examples are “I want to go […]
Knuggets of Knowledge 