People & Teams

Articles

Good Architecture, Good Leadership

Software architects have the unique ability to provide leadership using skills gained in this role. Drawing on Kouzes and Posner's The Leadership Challenge, Patrick Bailey examines five practices that can be leveraged by the aspiring architect-as-leader.

Patrick Bailey's picture Patrick Bailey
Embracing Change and Complexity Embracing Change and Complexity

Louis J. Taborda explains that in order to be successful, we need to be able to embrace both change and complexity while being agile. The more quickly we develop software and the greater the sophistication of the solutions we build, the more difficult it is to maintain agility.

Louis Taborda
Goal, Goal, Who's Got the Goal? Goal, Goal, Who's Got the Goal?

Don Gray explains why software development teams need three common goals: long term, mid term, and short term. These goals focus a team and provide the glue that holds the team together.

Don Gray's picture Don Gray
The Weighing Scale Management Myth Management Myth #3: We Must Treat Everyone the Same Way

One of the biggest management myths is, “I must treat everyone the same way.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone has different goals for their career, and those change over the course of a career.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Heard and Valued: Three Short and Useful Bits of Advice for Improving Your Leadership Skills

Yogi Berra famously said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” In this article, Payson shares some of what he’s learned about leadership just by listening. Learn how transparency and iterative improvement can maximize the results of great leadership.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
On Beauty, Quality, and Relativity

The saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” rings true whether you’re staring at a centuries-old painting, listening to a busker’s music reflect off the tiles in a subway station, or testing software. It’s one thing to evaluate quality, but how do we evaluate how we evaluate quality?

Zeger van Hese's picture Zeger van Hese
person on podium We're Not "Special"

Often, when I comment on someone's blog post or respond to a tweet with a story about how my team succeeded with some practice, someone replies, "Yeah, but your team is special." I interpret this as meaning, "You're a presenter and book author. You must be an expert, so of course your team can do anything." This frustrates the heck out of me.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin
Management Myth #2: Only ‘The Expert’ Can Perform This Work

How many times have you seen this in your projects: You need something specific done such as a new database, or a specific user interface designed, or you need a release engineer, or a user interface designer, or a part of the system tested and the normal person who does that work is not available? What happens on your project? Does it wait until The Expert is available?

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
We Are Not Alone

Do you know colleagues who box themselves into the corner regularly? Getting lost is not the problem; coping with having gotten lost is the problem. Markus Gärtner explains how to notice that you are stuck, how to ask for help, and who you should be asking.

Markus Gärtner's picture Markus Gärtner
game of checkers Integrating Games to Change Behaviors, Part 2

Training people and introducing new ideas requires more than just clear, factual explanations or theorems. Brian Bozzuto explores how games, simulations, and other exercises play an instrumental role in helping people be comfortable enough with new ideas that they choose to put them into practice.

Brian  Bozzuto's picture Brian Bozzuto

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