Practical Technology

Some of the great lessons I learned about leadership: When you get that feeling of ' Uh oh, I'm going to have to do something about this...and I really don't want to do that... ', that's a good sign you should do something about it - I need to learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable No matter where you go, relationships are the most important thing you can focus on When things go wrong, ask: " what did WE miss here? " Don't be afraid of the stick - it has a time and place Be humble - success is a team effort When a decision must be made, make it - indecision hurts the whole team Leadership roles are a balance of do-ing & leading.  So what is the "do-ing" of leading? Setting goals & objectives ( helping tie business goals to tech team goals ) Providing guidance & mentorship Measuring ( doing KPIs right ) Following up ( accountability ) Back-patting ( ensuring people feel appreciated, give credit where c...

This post is a minor update on the last Learning Opportunities entry.  I have learned SO MUCH over the last two years, it's been an amazing experience. Some of my new reading is: Operations Management textbook ( very surprised as to how enlightening it is to see perceived "IT" problems being highlighted in a completely different context/industry ) Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company The Innovator's Dilemma ( super interesting read so far ) =Everyone should check these out= DevOps Kaizen (be good at getting better): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT542sffJpM (this concept is huge) From Design Thinking to DevOps and Back Again: Unifying Design & Operations: https://vimeo.com/129939230 The Case for Continuous Delivery: http://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/case-continuous-delivery Stop Hiring DevOps Experts and Star...

The best way I can describe why I'm moving on is "Sometimes God opens doors, sometimes He closes them, and other times He kicks the door open and points."  This would be the latter. After 3ish years at SCI, I'm moving on to a new opportunity with the folks working on "SI Play".  My time at SCI was probably the most powerful period of growth in my entire career and I'm really grateful for that, and somewhat sad to be leaving behind a great team.  From what I know so far, I'll be working with a totally different stack, but doing essentially the same thing - software development.  They are also working toward the same ideals that I've been helping SCI work toward - namely CI/CD.  A lot of the interview conversations were about moving toward Continuous Delivery/Deployment, so this should be an educational experience for me.  Also a great chance to apply everything I've learned over the last few years. So for the attentive Google bots, expec...