personality matters

Leslie Sachs discusses the key people skills essential to appreciating how and which personality factors most impact one's ability to successfully implement core build and release management practices.

Do organizations need fewer managers and more leaders? Do the qualities of one outweigh those of the other? In this article, Esther Derby defines leadership and management, and shows how one test manager incorporates both.

When people work closely together, there's bound to be friction and irritations. Some people find it difficult to bring up these issues directly, so they hint and hope. And when the hint doesn't help, the irritation can grow out of proportion. Team members' ability to give peer-to-peer feedback both about work and interpersonal relationships is critical to developing a highly productive team. Esther Derby tells us about a team torn apart by an unattractive personal habit and offers some advice for talking about touchy interpersonal issues.

If you're a manager, you probably know what it's like to have more work than you can possibly do. However, it's unlikely you'll receive approval to hire another "you." How can you free up some time to focus on the strategic work of management? You may have an untapped resource in your group. Take a look at the career aspirations of your staff: Does anyone want to move up to be a team lead or manager? Delegating a defined chunk of management work can give someone the chance to try on a new role and learn a new skill.