People

You have an employee.  A solid employee, not stellar.  Let’s call him Sam.  Sam’s been with you for five years.  And you’ve made sure his pay keeps up with the cost of living.   Including the recent inflation craziness.  But here’s…

I was talking to one of my clients.  I work out in his gym so I know his trainers.  He was saying that most of his people would never really move beyond where they were.  Which I understood.  Because the…

Technical folks are impressed by smart.  How fast someone can code.  How quickly they can learn a new skill.   How many obscure features they’ve mastered of any given system.  I think it’s better to ask – how right?   As in…

Some folks don’t know the right ways to run a project. Or close a set of books.  Or manage staff. And they can be educated.  But other folks do.   They know they should test.  They know you can’t overhaul your…

Geeks spend a lot of time talking about the best way to run a software projects.  But no method works without trust.  Trust that when something unexpected comes up, we’ll fix it.  Trust that we can find a solution.  Trust…

You get what you pay for but not what you expect.  I once had a client that ran cable tv systems in the mountain west.   They were really driven by numbers.  Bonuses depended on keeping to budget.  One year a…

When she was a junior associate, my ex-wife once told the partner she was working for that please and thank you were like dress down day.   It didn’t cost anything and they boosted morale.  And, as in many things, she…

The only perfect employee is the one you haven’t hired.  I am not a super patient person (cue the laugh track). So, when people frustrate me, I find myself daydreaming about that better person that I really should be able…

Software isn’t resentful.  You have technical debt when your software works but doesn’t work well. It takes hours to run when it should take minutes. Or, there are hundreds of lines of code that no one really understands because the…

Lots of folks like having a steady job.  Knowing what’s going to happen each day when they start work.   They’re happy staying at the same place year after year.  And that’s a challenge when your project is about making a…