News
Leadership Fit for the 21st Century: Intent-based Leadership
This third post and last in the series on leadership fit for the 21st century covers the keynote given by David Marquet at the evening seminar on leadership fit for the 21st century about intent-based leadership and the leader-leader model.
Investigation of Project Management Skills
An investigation was done to find out which skills are desired by employers for project management positions and what it takes to be successful as a project manager. An interview about skills for managing projects, likability of bosses and leadership skills, why people feel miserable at work and what can be done to prevent it and the need for project managers when organizations migrate to agile.
Developments in IT Project Management
The demand for IT project managers is increasing. Agile methodologies support collaboration with distributed teams for creative problem solving. The Internet of Things, cloud, big data, and cyber security will continue to dominate the IT landscape. Project managers have to pioneer IOT initiatives, be prepared for the influx of data and ensure that deliverables from their projects are secure.
How Testers Can Make Organizations More Successful
Tester should go beyond their testing discipline and go into the organization. By asking questions they can start a movement that increases product quality and helps organizations to become more successful as Mike Sutton explained in his closing keynote at the Agile Testing Day Netherlands 2015 about test beyond quality – beyond software.
Potential of Social Capital in Organizations
“After 100 years of building organizations and 50 years of HRM, the future of work now lies in mastering the art of engaging and developing social capital of our organizations” says Bart Cambré, Director of Research at Antwerp Management School. At the No Pants Festival 2015 he talked about unleashing the full potential of social capital in organizations.
Q&A with Dave Gray about Liminal Thinking for Organizational Change
The majority of change initiatives fail because people feel that they do not have any influence in the proposed changes and don’t understand how they affect them or would make things better for them says Dave Gray. Liminal thinking is a change approach that focuses on understanding how people construct and change their beliefs. It provides a skill set to create and use thresholds to effect change.
Putting People First to Increase Motivation and Performance
Focusing on the motivation of individuals can positively impact performance. An interview with Peter van Oevelen about motivating individuals, influencing the mood of teams, applying radical management, economies of motivation and building effective teams with individuals that have their own ideas, preferences and motivations.
Experiences and Good Practices from Hackathons
Hackathons are events where developers work together during a fixed period to collaboratively develop software. They provide learning opportunities and space for developers and organizations sponsoring the hackathons to network and have some fun.
Dealing with Negative Emotions in Teams
When people work together in agile teams, emotions are bound to happen. Where positive emotions can give a boost to team working, negative emotions can have significant impact on collaboration in teams and affect their productivity. Noel Radley published a report on how team mood can impact project management. InfoQ asked her why negative emotions happen and how agile teams can deal with them.
Q&A with Gerald Weinberg on The Influence of Individual Moods on Team Working
InfoQ is researching the factors that influence the mood of teams. As team mood is an aggregation of the individual moods of team members, understanding the individual mood and how it influences team working can help to learn more about team moods. InfoQ interviewed Gerald Weinberg about individual and team mood, influencing the mood of individuals and discussing moods in teams.
State of Testing Report
The State of Testing 2013 report contains the results of a survey done by Joel Montvelisky from PractiTest together with Tea-Time with Testers. The survey, which has been filled in by people from testing and QA communities, provides insight in the adoption of test techniques and practices, test automation, and the challenges that testers are facing.
Pair Coaching with Agile Teams
Agile coaches can coach in pairs instead of coaching individually. Each coach will focus on different aspects of coaching. As every coach has specific experience and skills they can complement each other. Two coaches can collaboratively help individuals or teams to learn and improve when adopting agile.
How to Use Feedback with Performance Appraisals for Agile Enterprises
When enterprises implement agile ways of working, questions can arise if changes are needed in the way performance appraisals are being done? Several authors have suggestions on how you can use feedback next or as a replacement for existing appraisal processes, to improve the performance of individuals and teams.
Pivot-Thinking – The Neuroscience of Design
The Center of Professional Development at the Stanford University offers a free live seminar on 8th March (9.00 am / PST) addressing the thinking behind design thinking. Pivot thinking is a new research area that addresses how to bridge the gap between "convergers" and "divergers" in teams which is particularly interesting for software engineering projects.
How Applied Psychology can help Software Engineers
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.
