Linda Cook, a well-known agilist, and board member of both the Agile Alliance and the Agile Leadership Network, discusses the agile coaching profession. Among other things, she covers servant leadership, being as a role model, types of individuals appropriate for the profession, and the differences between being an external coach versus being an internal employee in the coach role.
On the 1st November software engineer and author John R. Fox has published his book “Digital Work in an Analog World”. According to its subtitle “Improving Software Engineering by Applied Psychology”, the book does not consider software engineering in practice. Rather, it is focusing on the psychological aspects relevant and practices relevant for engineers.
Scrum co-creator Ken Schwaber welcomes PMI's establishment of its own Agile certification program, and has recently posted his thoughts.
Microsoft's Neal Gafter, who was primary designer and implementer of the Java SE 4 and 5 language enhancements and now works for Microsoft on .NET platform languages, discusses the impact of Oracle's acquisition of Sun on Java,makes the case for adding segmented stacks and a meta-object protocol to Java,, and offers some insights into how Java and C#/.NET compare.
Steve Denning's latest book – The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century. He contends that management today is in need of a radical makeover – existing practices are not adequate to meet the needs of the modern high-speed world. He shows how Agile methods are being introduced beyond the software world to deliver benefits to people and organisations.
Roy Osherove discusses three maturity stages of a team and adjusting leadership accordingly, along with techniques meant to bring craftsmanship and maturity in a software development team.
Diana Larsen discusses how Agile can help to overcome 3 management traps – magical thinking, illusion of control, individual blame – by relying on data and evidence, accepting uncertainty and unpredictability, and maintaining a whole systems view.
Founding members of the ICAgile Consortium, Ahmed Sidky and Alistair Cockburn, discuss IC Agile, along with Bob Payne, a consultant, coach and trainer. They explain why ICAgile was created, how it fits in with popular certifications like the Certified ScrumMaster, how organizations that deliver training can fit their courses into the ICAgile road map and how individuals can collect knowledge.
Roy Osherove talks about the challenges and opportunities of being a software team leader. He shares his hard won experiences in growing teams, their members and influencing behaviour. Being a software team lead is about getting out of your comfort zone, creating trust and commitment in your team but also about knowing about team maturity levels and the different approaches needed.
