InfoQ Homepage Teamwork Content on InfoQ
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Distributed DevOps Teams: Enabling Non-Stop Delivery
Keeping in touch and being cohesive as a distributed team is a challenge many face. Assigning stories from a shared backlog helped a distributed team in doing non-stop delivery, as did giving all members of the team the authority to promote to production and back-out code at need. You need to give attention to the architecture to prevent creating similar or duplicate micro-services.
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WhatsApp Adopts the Signal Protocol for Secure Multi-Device Communication
WhatsApp is testing its new architecture aimed to enable true multi-device message synchronization while preserving end-to-end cryptographic security. To this aim, WhatsApp is adopting the Signal protocol.
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Assessing Remote Employee Experiences for Hybrid-Remote Work-Settings
Employers and employees have begun to prepare for their return to the office. One of the options is a hybrid-remote work setting which aims to support individual preferences when it comes to where, when, and how to work. According to Kaleem Clarkson, assessing your remote employee experience can help to make decisions on workplace flexibility policies.
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Distributed DevOps Teams: Supporting Digitally Connected Teams
To establish a digital connection within a globally distributed team, an organization provided the team members with both collaboration tools and supplied an extra monitor with a visualization board. Collaboration using the online chat and white board initially posed challenges, as the board was tweaked towards the teams’ needs.
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Engineering Your Organization through Services, Platforms, and Communities
Organizations need to be able to sustainably deliver value to their customers and business; that is why they exist, said Randy Shoup at QCon Plus May 2021. To do so, they need to be able to effectively and efficiently leverage the “resources” they have at their disposal- their people, teams, and technology.
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How to Improve Your Team's Communication and Psychological Safety
Mapping your team’s typical communication style can help improve communication and psychological safety, reduce friction within a team, and make conflict more productive. When we understand how we communicate and how we like to be communicated with, we not only have a better understanding of ourselves, but also of others, and this can play to our and their strengths accordingly.
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Remote Working Risks Increasing Toxic Cultures
In a study conducted in May 2021 of 133 US companies, 29% of the respondents said that team spirit and working relationships have suffered from working remotely, with 11% leaving or planning to leave because the company culture has become toxic. Toxic cultures result in demotivated and disengaged employees and have a significant negative impact on organizational outcomes.
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How Testers Can Contribute to Product Definition
Utilizing the tester’s feedback during product definition and design is valuable for the business. Listening to the organization's needs, understanding the business goals, and customizing the test process by incorporating different skills and practices is one way testing can begin while the product is still "on paper".
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The Impact of Radical Uncertainty on People
Humans look for certainty as that makes them feel safe. Suddenly becoming an entirely distributed team due to the pandemic disrupted people. According to Kara Langford, radical uncertainty can cause people to believe they are in danger and lead to health issues. People will respond differently; uncertainty has also shown to lead to fresh ideas, innovations, and social good.
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Variations on New Normal for Workplaces
Over the last year office work has shifted to almost completely remote, and as vaccination programs roll out around the world it is shifting again. There is a lot of speculation around what the new normal will look like. Employee well-being, flexibility in working arrangements, availability creep, virtual and augmented reality are all factors impacting what work could look like going forward.
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The Importance of Psychological Safety for Agile Transformations in Africa
The absence of psychological safety in the world of work limits the agile transformation journeys of organisations in Africa. Psychological safety is an enabler, not an act of weakness. Organisations that do not understand or foster it might find it difficult to survive in these VUCA times.
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Advice on Overcoming Zoom Fatigue
Recent studies by Stanford and Microsoft point to the reality of “Zoom Fatigue” - the physiological and psychological tiredness caused by back to back virtual meetings. Both studies explore reasons for the tiredness and present advice on reducing the impact.
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Fostering Cross-Cultural Collaboration
Building intercultural relationships are so important to success in the workplace and world today, yet many people are hesitant or unsure of how to build relationships with those who are different from themselves. The first step is to reflect on yourself and notice where and how you spend your time and resources.
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Virtualizing Design Sprint and UX Workshops
Design sprint and UX workshops can be done virtually using a combination of remote whiteboards and communication platforms. It brings advantages like being able to invite international experts, having remote participants attend, less travelling, smaller carbon footprint, and lower costs.
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The Post COVID Normal Will Be Hybrid Work Environments
The Microsoft Work Trend Report points to flexible, hybrid work being the new normal, leaders being out of touch with their employees, an exhausted workforce, innovation at risk, shrinking networks, the need for authenticity to spur productivity and well-being & a huge negative impact on GenZ. The report provides concrete advice for charting the way forward to overcome these and other challenges.