TEDx Regina just wrapped up yesterday at the University of Regina, and I had the great privilege of being a volunteer for the event. For those who are unfamiliar with TED, it is an organization that focuses on spreading ideas through conferences held around the world with great and influential speakers. TEDx is a variant where local groups in smaller communities can organize similar conferences using TED branding and resources. I highly recommend going to TED.com and watching any one of their 15-20 minute videos - you’ll probably be hooked and want to watch the other 999 that they have.

The trickiest part of being a developer is getting the client to describe their problem instead of their perceived solution.

— Chris Cummer (@senorprogrammer) May 2, 2012

I couldn’t agree with this tweet more. I can’t count the number of times someone’s come up to me and said “we need this”. Not, “we have this problem” or “what do you think of this solution”, it’s “we’ve already picked a solution, you just have to implement it now”.

I’ve had the pleasure of working on a few different teams during my career, all with different “configurations”. I’ve been on a two-person web team, where we were responsible for everything from project initiation to server deployment ourselves. I’ve been on a 20+ developer project, where my feature was just one of many fit into a large point of sale application. I’ve been on a “startup” team, where practically everyone was a new hire and we were making a new product from scratch. Throughout all this experience, one thing that has always changed has been the deployment & support story.