Thoughts

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.

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”.

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 Business” isn’t a job function or role or group of people. “The Business” is everyone in the company. So what is happening in reality, behind “The Business” curtain?...

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 confusion between both data types since either of them supports handling binary choices. The confusion arrises in particular when you want to add the choice of a new behaviour, on top of an existing one....

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.

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 to another. We always need to do major adjustments to the new context and the different realities. But what if I told you that we can take this idea even further?...

“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 inbox. Especially when you don’t want it to be. That’s it. — Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine (2011-07-12) It was not about “perfection” but rather a way for us to take back control of our time and avoid being reactive....

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? Let’s put our egos to the side and be emphatic with those who give us criticism, so the burden isn’t on the speaker alone.

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. Doing so, we can create a better culture of preparedness in our companies.

After 15 days of confinement due to COVID-19, with 2 adults working and 3 children attending school remotely, “WFH” is standing more closely to “Working from Hell” than “Working from Home”. 😱

Comparison between different ways of doing enumerates, with scala.Enumeration, case object and Java’s Enum.

Análise do impacto do incêndio no Andanças, seguradoras envolvidas e nacionalidade das matrículas.

Compare and contrast different design artefacts (sketch, wireframe, mockup, and prototype) in terms of their fidelity, speed, cost and use cases.

A while back, Widgetlabs (makers of Vodafone’s Update app for iPhone) was kind enough to ask about my complaints regarding the Vodafone Update app. Having setup version 2.0 of the app to connect to my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, here’s a quick list of my main impressions, in no particular order: Problems Poor timeline management, with several issues: Entries getting frequently out of chronological order, with the most recent ones appended after 1 month old entries, for example....