InfoQ Homepage Leadership Content on InfoQ
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Teleconferencing: How To Keep 'Em Engaged
While Agile processes recommend to colocate team members for synergy, it's not always possible. More and more projects are utilizing talent from locations all over the world to solve various problems. In these cases leaders and facilitators can contribute significantly to teamwork by mastering the ability to run effective remote meetings.
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Panel on Agile Leadership: Stories from the Trenches
InfoQ presents video of a panel from the APLN Leadership Summit at Agile2006, where four business leaders spoke about their experiences: Bud Phillips (Capital One Financial), Israel Ganot (BMC Software), Steven Ambrose (DTE Energy), Peter George (Cronos Inc.). Topics included top-down vs. bottom-up adoption, making the leap of faith to enterprise adoption and the value of the PMO.
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No More Self-Organizing Teams?
Jim Highsmith has suggested that the term self-organizing team "has outlived its usefulness in the agile community and needs to be replaced". He suggests that Light-Touch Leadership is more appropriate. But does this negate the need for self-organizing teams and the focus on individual team members "doing what it takes" to get things done?
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Leadership is not Obsolete for Self-Organizing Teams!
In this talk, software thought leader Mary Poppendieck reviewed 20th century management theories, including Toyota and Deming, and went on to talk about "the matrix problem", alignment, waste cutting, planning, standards and other topics including the role of measurement: "cash flow thinking" over "balance sheet thinking". InfoQ presents video of this popular talk from the Agile2007 conference.
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Ready! Set! Getting New Team Members off to a Good Start.
How long does it take a newcomer to become an effective member of your team? Learning is integral to agile methodologies, but the learning needs of the newcomer are different from established team members: in a standup meeting, "I did (unintelligible) yesterday" offers them more questions than answers. Pat Kua suggests some practices that specifically reduce the "setup time" for new team members.
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Without a Defined Process, How Will We Know Who To Blame?
"A fundamental premise of the 'train-wreck' approach to management is that the primary cause of problems is 'dereliction of duty'" said Peter Scholtes in his 2003 book on leadership. Mary Poppendieck's recent article on process, people and systems asked: "Which is more important - process or people?" and showed how Lean is an alternative to certified process improvement programs like ISO 9000.
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The Right Phrase at the Right Time: Priceless
Saying the right thing at the right time can transform an interaction. But it's difficult! In a recent StickyMinds article, Michele Sliger suggested a handful of phrases to help keep the conversation going in the right direction.
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Ted Neward's thoughts on Architecture Roles & Responsibilites
Ted Neward shares his thoughts on the roles and responsibilities of the Software Architect, discussing what an architect does, how to approach the role, and if architects are still relevant.
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Jean Tabaka's Agile Odyssey
In this amusing presentation from Agile2006, Jean Tabaka compares impediments and obstacles encountered by an Agile mentor with those detailed in Homer's classic. In this 73 minutes presentation, discover who plays which classical roles in Agile adoption: Cyclops, the Sirens, Poseidon, Circe, Cicones, the Lotus-Eaters, and even the good-and-faithful dog Argus.
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InfoQ Book Review: The Responsibility Virus
Agile teams can use a regular learning cycle to shift gradually and organically into a more collaborative mode. But the rest of the business may not be equally well equipped. Deborah Hartmann proposes that the Responsibility Virus is an important book for the change agent's library, suggesting that it may provide a tool to help other parts of the organization also grow into greater collaboration.
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Agile Alliance Elects New Directors
After Agile 2007 the Agile Alliance announced the election results of its ballot for board members for the 2007-2008 period.
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InfoQ Article: Creating a Collaborative Workspace
We may imagine an extremely Agile team as working in a minimalist teamroom, surrounded by whiteboards. But that isn't enough - some of the comforts left behind in our traditional spaces were there for good reasons. In this InfoQ article several experienced coaches offer advice from experience, on creating collaborative team spaces that work.
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Time for Change: Agile Teams in Traditional Organisations
Agile teams seem to be meeting more resistance, as they scale up and move from "early adopter" territory into the mainstream. Does this mean Agile can't work in more traditional organisations? Not necessarily, say coaches Michael Spayd and Joe Little, in a new InfoQ interview: what's needed now is an awareness of the need to facilitate organizational change.
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Presentation: Tim Lister on Agile Leadership
In this presentation, recorded at the the APLN summit last year, leadership guru Tim Lister explains the principles of Agile Project Leadership in the framework of the Agile Declaration of Interdependence.
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Can Agile Separate Team Concerns from Organizational Ones?
When it comes to agile methods, almost everyone agrees that agility can apply to the software development team and to the organization. This raises some questions: To what extent can the one be separated from the other? Can an agile team succeed if the organization around them doesn't wish to adapt to an agile approach?