Five for Friday – August 21, 2020

I’m two months into my 18th year at Microsoft, and I still really enjoy it – most of the time at least. My job is great, I work on amazing technology, and with people smarter than you can imagine. But, for two months or so every year, the dreaded MS review monster comes out from…

This week has been…a week. But here are a few things I found worth sharing. We’ve done it again – see you all in a week.

When I was 9 years old, I’d play pick up soccer at recess. A couple of kids – the “leaders” would pick teams, and then we’d play. Since we were kids, the leaders of the teams were sometimes the best players, but usually the loudest kids. Leadership was short-lived, but effective for the purpose. I…

For some reason, I have a lot of friends from the UK (could be soccer, could be Microsoft – I don’t know). I hang around them enough to know not to look down when someone says “Pants”, and that “sixes and sevens” have nothing to do with math. Learning the subtleties took time, and I…

Status meetings are boring. More importantly, status meetings are unneeded. Meetings are for discussion, and updates on status rarely require that (until, of course, they do). Nothing – nothing is more painful than sitting through a meeting where people go around the table and say, “Today, I’m doing X”.  Hopefully nothing alarming so far. A lot of teams…