I’ve been thinking about some material that I cover in my book Land the Job and explaining little bits of it here on my site as well. Today I thought I’d write a bit more about keywords and what to do with them in your resume. What’re They For Keywor...

The deadline is approaching and there is still so much to do. Workdays get longer, the rigor that normally applied to design and testing begin to slide in favor of cranking out more features. The technical debt card starts getting swiped. A feature s...

There is a funny thing that happens when consultants are around each other. They keep using big important words. One such set of words that get thrown around a lot is strategy and tactics. I heard these words over and over. Even people had it in thei...

It’s time to talk about your lifestyle, and what you’re doing to make sure you’re working towards it. Take some time aside from your busy activities. Let’s say thirty minutes, and begin ask yourself this question: You wake up in the morning sometime...

Last week, during stand up a manager that I've been working with said, out of the blue, that several work items now have a deadline of the next Wednesday. My ears perked up. After the stand up was over I asked if I could come back to the deadline, an...

For developers today they have a lot of things to consider when applying for their first few jobs. Do they build a great portfolio? Do they invest in curating a great GitHub profile? Do they update their resume? Should they craft an ideal cover lette...

Today, Esther Derby wrote on Twitter: Mystery of the week: why do #mgrs hire ppl for thinking ability, then get upset when same ppl question mgmt dictates? I have my suspicions, but first I want to describe how I've come to think about this problem...

No sprints, releases, recent significant events, or even a common thread of problems with a group I’ve never met is the backdrop for a recent retrospective that I facilitated. I refer to a scenario like this as facilitating a blind retrospective. Did...

I am working with someone who has a different working style than myself. I find it interesting to watch them work. They often ask how they they can be more effective in their communication. I gave some advice that I was also given about how I communi...

There is a tendency in me to look at things as right or wrong, black-and-white, or on-or-off. I know better than to think this way, but I find myself falling into this way of thinking with enough regularity that I thought I’d write about it. Looking...