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Project empathy – quick update

Not long ago I began writing code to remember what it was like to build things every day for users with the hope to build some empathy for my direct and indirect reports After a few months of doing close to 30 minutes in the morning of daily coding I want to share what I […]

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management

First 90 day plan – AI sponsored post

The first 90 days of a new job are critical for success. In order to make the most of this time, it is important to have a plan. The following is a suggested plan for the first 90 days: Establish your goals and priorities. What do you hope to accomplish in your new role? What […]

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habits quality

Keystone habits in action

What is a keystone habit According to The Power of Habit author Charles Duhigg, when there is a habit change, it can set off a chain reaction that has the ability to change your self-image. It sounds simple, powerful, and appealing, so I wanted to try it out for my team. The quality problem At […]

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strategy Time management

Working in multiple time zones

Recently, the subject of teams working across time zones has come up in three separate conversations, so it makes for an excellent topic to write about. Here are a few guidelines I’ve seen applied successfully that will help work across time zones a bit easier on your team. Default to public conversations in chat Doing […]

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contractors management

Working with contractors

Recently, we’re getting ready to engage with contractors to help us drive a major initiative forward. Behind the scenes at work, here is a view that happens before contractors write any code. Procurement It starts by figuring out what company you’ll be working with.  Your company might already have a pre-vetted list of vendors, but […]

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habits stories Time management

Unblocking yourself

I am recovering from a couple of weeks of COVID madness and trying to get back into my habits, including writing. To my surprise, I had no idea what to write about. I was effectively blocked. Thinking about being blocked reminded me of being blocked at work and what I did to get moving. In […]

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empathy management stories

Project empathy — day five – logic and the first test

Today felt productive, engaging, and like I finally made real progress. Here is how the day went. I created a new ProjectManager class to contain the logic for the project domain. Since I am exposing the most straightforward functionality, I only added create and read methods, with creation only having a title as a required […]

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empathy management stories Uncategorized

Project empathy, day four — first new code

Day four was fun but short. I began by setting my Pomodoro timer to 25 minutes to work on the first milestone, creating and viewing projects. The project’s definition already has a lot of functionality, so I constrained the milestone only to include the title as part of the project. The framework I am using https://aspnetboilerplate.com is […]

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empathy management stories

Project empathy, day three — milestones

Day 3 took me towards project management; here is what happened. I managed to get 30 minutes in before the end of my day, so I was determined to make the most out of them. Recently, someone shared an article on project management and the importance of setting milestones rather than features. Using the concept […]

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empathy growth habits management

Project empathy, day two

For day two of our project, I only got in 30 minutes of work. Here is how that went. Since I am in management, I am constantly in project management and productivity software such as Jira and Todoist. The idea is to build a project management tool that feels as simple as todoist. Doing so […]