I've been freelance for three years now, and I admit it: I haven't had a very cohesive plan. I've been reactive, saing Yes to all the things and going where the wind blows me.Well, last year I decided enough was enough. I started saying No instead of Yes. I even bought myself some hologrammatic gold stickers and made myself a little chart: Every time I said No, I got a gold star. Just say NO Since then, I've been doing a whole series of exercises designed to help me decide what I should be...
16 days ago • 1 min read
All humans have problems from time to time One of the hardest parts about a leadership role is the fact your team are PEOPLE with PROBLEMS and that’s hard to ignore. You might be aware that one of your team members is privately suffering. You might hope you can just ignore it. Or maybe you desperately want to help, or feel like you should help, but either way you don’t know how. First things first: You’re (probably) not a therapist. It’s absolutely not your job to fix people’s personal...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
"I'm nowhere near as good technically as the senior devs in my team." I hear this repeatedly from many of the technical leaders I work with. But let's dig in a little... "Our team performs well because I lean on my senior devs for execution, and they lean on me to make sure they get whatever they need." OK, so you're definitely performing a useful purpose? "I understand the business logic, dependencies of upcoming projects, can do T Shirt sizing alone and I run technical analysis meetings...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Workshops for technical leaders, in London and Cornwall How technical do technical leaders have to be? Are you worried that you’re too hands-on, or not hands-on enough? Are you exhausting yourself trying to keep up with every technical detail in your domain? Sometimes individual contributors are promoted to leadership positions and worry that they won’t be as hands-on as they used to be. Sometimes they worry that they no longer have time to stay up to date with modern technology and / or the...
2 months ago • 1 min read