Guide to being invisible in a crowded party. The subtle art of staying present and mingling with people, at the same time absent without engaging, all without raising suspicion. Parties and social gatherings with many people can be interesting… or a complete nightmare. Either for work or for family, there…

There are many guidelines on how to structure feedback but human nature is quite common. A simple mnemonic will help your recall your favourite framework when it matters the most — talk about what you “observe”, its “impact” and then “ask”. Negative feedback is never easy to impart on others…

Draw back the curtain to reveal the real people behind it — Few corporate speak expressions annoy me in as much as these 2 words: 😬 “The business” This is a pet peeve of mine, for sure. But beyond that, it’s important we stop covering decision makers behind “The Business” curtain. There is no such entity called “The Business” in companies. “The…

Choosing between Booleans and Enumerates when the options are binary — In programming, Booleans and Enumerates are common data types to represent the concept of “choice”. When there are several things to choose from, the Enumerate is the only one to support it, so that’s clear. But what about when you have two things to choose from? There might be some…

Paring technical sessions for kick-offs and reviews can be a good alternative for programmers frustrated with async code reviews and unhappy with continuous pair programming. — Over the years I’ve worked in many software delivery teams under a multitude of working formats: Sometimes working collocated, others as a remote satellite worker, to completely distributed¹ With people having very different skill sets and levels of experience²

Why nothing has advantages or disadvantages, only characteristics — We have all heard the common sense¹ saying that “context is everything” at some point of our life. It’s a reminder to consider the circumstances before making judgments or decisions. Especially in consultancy, “context is everything” is a famous adage. What is true in one company, almost never applies directly…

Get control of your Slack inbox with Inbox Zero principles and enjoy a clutter-free workspace. — “Inbox zero” is a pivotal concept to deal with the constant influx of information we have nowadays. Merlin Mann coined it in 2006, during a series of posts on 43Folders. That “zero?” It’s not how many mes­sages are in your inbox–it’s how much of your own brain is in that…

Most information on feedback focuses on how to give negative feedback. But what about receiving negative feedback? How better would it be if both ends shared the burden of having productive conversations? …

Did you know firefighters are strategic? So why do we use the term firefighting when we mean “reactive and impulsive”? — We use the analogy of firefighting when people handle unexpected problems at work. Instead of reacting in a chaotic manner like civilians, adopt the strategic approach of trained firefighters. This involves having a plan, clarifying roles, training people and practicing together. …