Paul Grenyer

In February 2025 I gave a 15 minute version of my "So you think you can lead a team?" talk to my colleagues on park in Devon. You can watch it here: So you think you can lead a Team? Software engineering is hard. Leading a team, as an engineer, can be even harder. Many of us are better at developing software than we are with people and feel our value lies in actually writing code. When you step into team leading, there are more people than code and your value increases. Over the last 25 years I’ve been unexpectedly dropped into team leading a number of times, but three and a half years ago I chose to do it. It took at least twelve months for me to realise I was only starting to understand what leading a software team is and what it means. Join me for some of the highs and lows of team leading and an insight into some of the things I learnt to help me be a better team lead. I can’t promise a panacea as I  still have much to learn, but I hope to help you avoid some of the mista...

Today I attended my first DataDog Summit. It was interesting, but at times, it felt like a bit of a slog. Registration began at 9am, and by 10am, we were in the main auditorium for two and a half hours straight - eight back-to-back 15 minute sessions with no breaks. The sessions were a mixture of introductions, customer experience and DataDog features. Of course the DataDog feature talks were just a little bit salesy and DataDog give the impression they think they’re the answer to everything, but it wasn’t too bad. The customer experience talks were really interesting, especially those from NatWest, WTW (big in insurance apparently) and the London Stock Exchange. It was good to see other organisations solving similar problems to my current employer and that we’re ahead of most. The new (to me) DataDog features were also interesting. I didn’t know that data into DataDog wasn’t just a one way flow. DataDog can also be configured to adjust your infrastructure to save cost or mitigate une...

In the first half of 2025 I presented a number of times on team leading. During the talk I reference a number of books which have helped me become a better team leader: The One Minute Manager Kenneth Blanchard ISBN-13: ‎978-0008128043 The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey Ken Blanchard, Hal Burrows ISBN-13: 978-0007116980 How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie ISBN-13: 978-8183631297 What did you say? The Art of Giving and Receiving Feedback Charles N. Seashore, Edith Whitfield Seashore, Gerald M. Weinberg ISBN-13: 978-0965043007   Nonviolent Communication Marshall B. Rosenberg ISBN: 978-1-892005-28-1