Paul Grenyer

by Kenneth Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, Drea Zigarmi ISBN-13: 978-0007103416 This one’s a slow burner. I was disappointed at first as The Entrepreneur , who replaces The Young Man from The New One Minute Manager , going around talking to people in the manager’s organisation is getting a bit pedestrian. It got better a few chapters in. The short chapters help pick up the pace and make it easy to digest. There’s a fair amount of repetition from The New One Minute Manager and not all of it is remodelled for leadership. The descriptions of the four development levels and how they determine which of the four leadership styles to use is really good and the key message throughout the book. I can see myself using them, along with the six conversations, with my own teams. There is a clear difference between management and leadership. If you’ve read and mastered the practices in The New One Minute Manager , then it’s probably time to think about leadership to get better results from your team....

I wasn’t meant to be seeing the Pixies (again), I was just meant to be the taxi driver. Unfortunately, someone couldn’t make it last minute so I had to accompany my wife. I haven’t been to the O2 Academy in Birmingham since Lamb of God and Dimmu Borgir played there in February 2009. I didn’t remember the venue at all. There’s a reasonable view from the gallery, but the seating is uncomfortable and unreserved, so we ended up sitting from just after the doors opened at 7pm to 10.30pm when the Pixies went off. Numb bum doesn’t even come close. However, the service at the bar was quick and the staff friendly. An hour after the doors opened, the support band, Big Special , came on. Consisting of  a drummer, a singer, a backing track and a number of samples, they clearly had a talent, but it wasn’t in song writing or performance. They fully embraced what I would describe as some of the worst parts of lad culture, but the songs weren’t good enough to allow for it. Big Special are a local ...

by Dale Carnegie ISBN-13: 978-0091906818  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is an excellent book which, in my opinion, everyone should read at least once. I’ve read it twice and bought it four times. I was halfway through the first time and left it on a plane in 2006. I bought it again and finished it, I don’t know what happened to it after that. I bought another copy a few years ago and my wife lost it and this year I bought it again. It has helped form a lot of my opinions and practices related to how people should be treated and what I would like my leadership style to be. The book was published in 1953 and is a book of its time, so some of the language could do with updating, which is hard when some of it is in quotes from people. The book is divided into four sections: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People , Six Ways to Make People Like You , How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking and Be A Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offence or Ar...

by George R. R. Martin ISBN-13: 978-000746606 I’m glad it’s over. I loved the TV series, but the books are awful. Long winded and the amount of unnecessary detail is boring and obscures the story. If George R.R Martin ever completes the next book, I’ll read it, but only to be able to say I’ve read them all. The best I can say about A Dance With Dragons is that there is some story in there somewhere. I can see why the TV series changed so much and they changed it for the better. It was good to see some of my favorite characters go on a different journey and not come to a brutal end. It took me three goes to get through A Dance With Dragons. I read two other books in between the last two quarters of the book. I needed to maintain my interest in reading by finding something enjoyable to read.

So you think you can lead a team? I’ve been talking and writing a lot about leading a software engineering team in 2025. I started thinking about it more deeply the year before when I decided to give a colleague, who was moving into team leading, some advice: 'Doing the work' isn't the only way to add value Remember to delegate Pick your battles Talk to your team every day Out of this came a talk, “So you think you can lead a team?” which I gave at work, at meetups and at conferences in various different formats during the first quarter of 2025. I am also turning these ideas, and more, into a book I hope to release towards the end of 2025. I’ve already explored delegation and you can read about it here: https://paulgrenyer.blogspot.com/2025/04/remember-to-delegate-triangle-of-trust.html Earlier this year, a senior engineer on my team was deeply focused on solving a problem, but it wasn’t the right problem to be solving. Instead of asking how to solve it, they should have be...

It felt good to be back at the AWS Summit . I got a lot out of last year and this year was interesting too. I attended some sessions on interesting topics and some which reassured me I’m doing the right things.  It was good to catch up with some old friends, see my colleagues in person and chat with some of our suppliers at their stands. For an event which boasts 24,000 attendees, most things run extremely smoothly. My only real gripes are not being able to get into some sessions as they were full and the length of time it takes to get a cuppa! Keynote I skipped the keynote last year as I was keen to get on with some hands on labs. This year I thought I’d find out what it was all about. It took place in the 4000 capacity auditorium, but that was full, so I watched in one of the many smaller theatres.  The theatres aren’t exactly small, each one holds more people than the entire nor(DEV):con conference in Norwich. Each is separated by only a curtain and headphones are provided...

by James S. A. Corey ISBN-13: 978-0356504254 After the slow start to Cibola Burn , Nemesis Games was straight back on form. I loved the split story lines which made it feel like a proper space opera again. The bad guys were easy to dislike, the good guys were wonderful. Avasarala was back in all here sweary goodness, but not in it as much as this part of the TV series. The TV series changed a lot of things and I’m not sure it maintains the same story lines sufficiently any more. We’ll see, if they ever pick it up and make more.