Videos

If you're going into a new technology leadership role (or any role in leadership for that matter), you will want to arrive prepared on Day One. Follow this 10 point checklist for your preparation ahead of Day One and you won't go far wrong in terms of feeling (and being) prepared for the job. If this checklist resonates with you, you can find more information in "100 Day Plan Toolkit for Technology Leaders to Hit the Ground Running", available in paperback and Kindle formats on Amazon (https://amzn.eu/d/a9QWVBd).

In the modern age of CI / CD, do people still feel the need for code freezes? Typicallly businesses pause deployments for a couple or three weeks over the festive period in order to minimise the risk of issues while they're running on reduced coverage from the team due to holidays. But is it really needed anymore? That said, if you are having a code freeze over Christmas, this video gives you some ideas about what you could get the team doing that moves you forward or catches up with stuff that might have been neglected through the course of a busy year :-) Merry Christmas from me and Stepthinking! Have a great 2026!

Do you need to grow your technology team to support your growth or you're not sure what you need or how to get it? Talk to me about what you need to achieve and I'll tell you what I think you need in terms of a team and then if you'd like me to, I can go ahead and put the team together for you. Growing a team isn't just about adding headcount, it's about making sure you've got the right capability and capacity in your teams to support your ambition. I can help you design the structure you need, identify the roles and then crucially find the right people. It minimises the risk of costly missteps and builds a team that can get up to speed quickly, deliver reliably and scale with confidence. If you know that you need increased capacity or strength and capability in your technology teams but you're not sure where to start, let's talk. If that sounds like you are your business, Send me a message or leave me a comment below and let's have a chat.

As a business leader, you don't need to know all of the details of how your technology works, but you do need to know why you're using it. The best CEOs and execs don't get bogged down in the detail, but they do ask the right questions. Questions like: What business value does this create? What risks does it introduce or mitigate? How will we know when it's worked? Those sorts of questions directly link technology decisions with with business outcomes, and that gives your technology leaders the clarity they need to deliver with confidence. So, as a business leader, you don't necessarily need to be able to speak the language of technology, but you do need to speak the language of outcomes. If you stay curious about the why and the what, your technology team will work out how!

People talk about technical debt as if it's a bad thing, a sign of poor engineering or perhaps weak leadership. But it isn't. Tech debt in itself is not a bad thing. Not everything that's wrong in your systems is technical debt. Some of it might be a result of poor decision making or a hasty implementation. But just as often it's because the solutions have become unfit for purpose over time. The world changes, expectations move on, and software that was once absolutely fit for purpose is no longer up to the job. True technical debt is different. It's when you knowingly take a shortcut or make a compromise in order to achieve a goal, but with every intention to put it right later. And that's fine as long as you've got a repayment plan for that debt. Only take it on if you can afford to meet the repayments. It's absolutely fine to achieve a shorter term goal by taking on that longer term commitment. Track the debt you've taken on deliberately. And don't hide behind the label of technical debt when something simply outgrown its usefulness. Because managed debt is a strategy ignored or misunderstood debt is just negligence in disguise. www.stepthinking.com

Are you a CTO who wishes you had somebody as experienced as you or more to talk to about strategic direction and transformation, but you've held back from putting that in place or asking for it because you worried it might make you vulnerable? Well, you're not the only one. In reality, though, all of the best leaders have got somebody they can talk to, a confidant, a trusted advisor, uh, a critical friend to bounce ideas off and talk about the challenges that they just can't talk to somebody else in their organisation about. And that's where a fractional CTO or advisor like me can help. I could be there to bounce ideas off, provide support and challenge for your thinking and help you do the best job you possibly can. And you don't need to feel threatened by me being there, because I don't want your job! I just want you to be the best leader you can possibly be. Getting the right help isn't a threat to your position or your authority. It's not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. If you need a critical friend or a trusted advisor, drop me a message, leave me a comment below. www.stepthinking.com

When a technology project veers off course, it's rarely a technical problem. It's usually a lack of clarity. As a leader, you don't need to know every technical detail of what's going on, but you do need to be clear on the direction of travel and the ultimate goal. If the outcome is vague, then so will the solution be, and then that lack of clarity opens the door to scope creep. Everybody says just one more thing. Before you know it, your project's twice the size and taking twice as long as you originally expected, and teams can't hit a moving target. If success isn't defined up front, your teams will just keep iterating and iterating until somebody tells them to stop. So before you start the next initiative, ask yourself, what problem are we trying to solve and how will we know when we're finished? Get that right, stick to it, and you'll solve most of your project headaches before you've even started. If you've got a project that's gone off track, look in the comments below and you'll find a link to a resource that'll help you get back on track. Www.stepthinking.com/downloads

Are you a business leader who likes to promote from within, but you're anxious to do that for your top technology leadership role because it's a big step for a first time leader. You might already have somebody in your business who knows your systems, your people, your culture, your product inside out. They just haven't led at that level before and that makes you nervous. Uh. Your alternative is to recruit externally. A more experienced leader certainly, but one who doesn't know your business or your people as well as your internal candidates. This is where I come in. I work alongside new technology leaders on a part time or fractional basis, giving them support and guidance to help their confidence grow in those critical early months in their new role. You get continuity, loyalty and deep business knowledge in your top technology leadership role without any of the cost or disruption of hiring from scratch. Having me there is likely to cost less than the salary uplift and recruitment fee associated with going externally. And you get all the benefits of having somebody who knows your business intimately in that top job. If that's the challenge you face, or if doing something like that and promoting from within appeals to you, let's have a conversation. www.stepthinking.com for more information about my services through Stepthinking.