Articles
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The Three Pillars of Positive Psychology Positive psychology encourages positive and effective behaviors that help to bring out desired traits, and it applies well to many business and technical situations. Leslie Sachs explains the third pillar of positive psychology, which is related to organizational psychology and is of great interest to anyone who wants to be part of an effective institution. |
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How Positive Psychology Can Help Your Organization Positive psychology is providing a new focus on effective ways to ensure that teams exhibit the right behaviors in a group or organizational setting. Closely related to many agile and lean concepts, these emerging practices are helping teams to improve communication, collaborate, and emerge as highly effective groups. Leslie Sachs explains what positive psychology is all about and how to start using these practices in your organization. |
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Operations Teams and Learned Helplessness Leslie Sachs writes how dysfunctional operations teams are often a consequence of a dysfunctional organizational culture that breeds distrust and results in employees who just sit back and allow disasters to occur. If you want your organization to be successful, you need to ensure that you drive out any aspect of learned helplessness and embrace a positive culture that enjoys a can-do attitude! |
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How to Deal with Paranoia in the Workplace One of the most difficult personality types to deal with is the person who always seems mistrustful of others. Sometimes, this lack of trust is justified, but sometimes it is really a manifestation of some dysfunctional personality issue. This article will help you understand this situation and suggest a few ways you can deal with difficult personality types like the paranoid person. |
Better Software Magazine Articles
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All Customers Are Not Created Equal Software developers may not think they have much to do with customers, but it is wise to consider the customer in all you do, from collecting requirements to design and implementation. |
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Do You Really Want to Be a Manager? The majority of managers are promoted due to their software development expertise. But becoming a successful manager requires a drastic change of focus. There is a set of expectations to consider before making that leap to the “dark side.” |
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Saying No to More Work We’ve all been placed in the situation where a boss asks you to perform more work than you can possibly handle. Johanna Rothman knows firsthand that there is a better way to respond that benefits you and your manager. |
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Cracking the Code on Millennials Our latest generation of programmers, project managers, and testers is perceived to be uninterested, unmotivated, and difficult to manage. Jason Garber presents innovative techniques you can use to lead your next rising star. |
Interviews
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How to Attract and Retain Skilled Software Testers: An Interview with Judy McKay
Podcast
In this interview, ASTQB President Judy McKay explains how you can not only attract a skilled tester, but keep one. She talks about the traits that make a tester good and what to avoid if you're looking to keep this person around. |
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Designing for Engagement: An Interview with Jaimee Newberry
Podcast
In this interivew, UX coach Jaimee Newberry talks about how to create a more engaging product for your users. She explains why it's so important to connect with customers on an emotional level, as well as how empathy and tone can change how a developer creates software. |
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How to Tell Your People They're Worthless: An Interview with Paul LaRue
Podcast
In this interview, Paul LaRue, creator at The UPwards Leader, discusses how you should and shouldn't lead a team. He tells a story about a colleague whose tactics made it difficult to lead a team, as well as what he learned from her many mistakes along the way. |
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The Importance of Communication in Today's Software Teams: An Interview with Ken Whitaker
Podcast
In this interview, Ken Whitaker, vice president of engineering at Datalight, discusses how to best lead software teams. He talks about time prioritization, how to avoid getting overwhelmed on a daily basis, and the importance of communication in today's software teams. |
Conference Presentations
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Agile Leadership Conversations in the Fishbowl
Slideshow
It can be lonely at the top. Trying to find other leaders who are having the same problem and issues you have and are willing to take a few minutes and help solve problems is really hard. One solution that Bob Galen has found works well is the "fishbowl" conversation. The fishbowl activity is also great for keeping a focused conversation while in a large group of people. At any time, only a few people have a conversation—the fish in the fishbowl. The remaining people are listeners—the ones watching the fishbowl. The caveat is that the listeners can join the discussion at any moment. In this session, Bob will facilitate this technique while you and the other attendees bring real leadership problems for all participants to learn from each other. |
Bob Galen
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The Art of Software Investigation
Slideshow
Although processes and tools play an important role in software testing, the most important testing tool is the mind. Like scientists, testers search for new knowledge and share discoveries—hopefully for the betterment of people’s lives. More than sixty years ago, William I.B. Beveridge reframed discussion of scientific research in his classic book The Art of Scientific Investigation. Rather than add to the many texts on the scientific method, he focused on the mind of the scientist. Join Ben Simo as he applies Beveridge’s principles and techniques for scientific investigation to software testing today. Learn to discover and communicate new knowledge that matters; to think—and test—like scientists; and to continually prepare, experiment, exploit chance, imagine productively, apply intuition and reason, tune observation, and overcome resistance. |
Ben Simo
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Brewing Great Agile Team Dynamics: No More "Bitter Beer Face" Communications
Slideshow
Ever find yourself making a sour face after talking to a coworker? Wishing your team meetings felt more like an engaging social hour? There is hope. Those everyday conflicts where something seems “off” after a conversation are often related to differences in communication styles. When team members understand themselves and others, there’s less conflict, more collaboration, and better working relationships. The DiSC model can help you understand why your team behaves the way it does and how to build trust for a more agile team. In this interactive session, agile coaches Allison Pollard and Barry Forrest will introduce the DiSC model to explain the four behavior types that are the ingredients in any team, then explore the characteristics of these ingredients and how they react with one another. |
Allison Pollard
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Individuals, Interactions, and Improvisation
Slideshow
As agile practitioners, we constantly strive to better ourselves, our team, and our delivery. A great way to achieve this is simply being open to learning new ideas from other disciplines—including improvisation. Jessie Shternshus shares her story of realizing the uncanny similarities... |
Jessie Shternshus
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