leadership

Articles

 A Team’s First Steps into Shared Ownership Snapshot: A Team’s First Steps into Shared Ownership

Karen Favazza Spencer writes of the time her team members had to modernize and expand the capabilities of their legacy system. In this situation, Karen took on the role of ScrumMaster, implemented several helpful agile techniques, and empowered the team to share leadership of the project with management.

Pollyanna Pixton Culturally Sound Leadership: An Interview with Pollyanna Pixton
Podcast

Pollyanna Pixton shares why crafting a healthy and productive agile culture is so difficult, and how it relies heavily on the shoulders of team leaders. She stresses the importance of leaders not providing their teams with answers—but giving them the ownership to solve problems on their own.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst
 Geographically Distributed Agile Team Primary Getting the Most Out of Your Geographically Distributed Agile Team

Shane Hastie and Johanna Rothman explain the challenges that come with distance, be it cultural, social, linguistic, temporal, or geographic. If you work to reinforce your collaboration habits every day, your geographically distributed agile team will thank you.

Management Myth 17: I Must Solve the Team’s Problem for Them

Everyone wants to be helpful, and that includes managers, middle managers, and senior managers. But the more managers interfere with a team’s growth, the less a team learns how to perform. Managers do not have to solve a team’s problems.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Management Myth 16: I Know How Long the Work Should Take

The longer a manager has been away from technical work, the less the manager still knows the technical details. And—as we all know—for software, the details matter. If you have a manager who insinuates himself into your work, ask that manager what he wants. As long as managers trust in their project teams, and as long as those project teams work to earn trust, both sides can work together.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Management Myth 15: I Need People to Work Overtime

When you force people to timebox their work to just the workday, they start making choices about the work they do and don’t do. They stop doing time-wasting work. They start doing useful work, and they start collaborating. But, only if you stop interfering.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Management Myth 13: I Must Never Admit My Mistakes

Managers are people, too. They have bad-manager days. And, even on good-manager days, they can show doubt, weakness, and uncertainty. They can be vulnerable. Managers are not omnipotent. That’s why it’s critical for a manager to admit a mistake immediately.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
Achieving Corporate Social Responsibility in Creative Ways

The term “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) is becoming very common in the software industry, with many IT companies trying to implement it through varied programs of different scales. Mukesh Sharma explains an approach to promoting an organization’s CSR that is mutually enriching for software testing organizations and the academic institutions that they associate themselves with.

Mukesh Sharma's picture Mukesh Sharma
Management Myth #12: I Must Promote the Best Technical Person to Be a Manager

Managing requires a different skill set from technical work, yet many companies promote their best technical workers to management positions. Here are some things to consider when it's time to promote your technical workers.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman
CMMI® to Agile: Options and Consequences
Slideshow

If you long for greater agility in your process-oriented or CMMI world, this session is for you. Paul McMahon shares how organizations can integrate agile approaches with CMMI and its key process area requirements. He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches taken by two organizations-one a CMMI Level 3 and the other a Level 5-to embrace agile principles and practices. To ensure your organization doesn't jeopardize its CMMI compliance with agile methods, Paul shares an approach that uses techniques such as asking key questions to focus objectives, pruning your processes, using the CMMI less formally, and keeping your "must dos" packaged separately from guidelines. He describes and discusses examples of each technique. Learn why the two organizations took different approaches, why one achieved its goals, and why the other fell short.

Paul McMahon, PEM Systems

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