InfoQ Homepage Teamwork Content on InfoQ
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Google Project IDX Integrates iOS and Android Emulator, Extends Templates Library, and More
Six months after its launch, Google has extended its experimental AI-powered, Cloud-based, shared workspace Project IDX with the introduction of integrated iOS simulator and Android emulator, new project templates, better integration with the Nix package manager, and more.
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Why Stable Software Teams Aren't Always Best: Self-Selection Reteaming at Redgate
There are advantages to having the same group of people stay together, especially in achieving a time-bound software development project. However, in a world where we increasingly see product or stream-aligned teams who own long-living software from creation through to delivery, operation, and ongoing improvements, then optimising for very stable teams is not the best idea, Chris Smith argues.
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How Playing Games Enables Engaging Ways of Learning Agility
Games can help us create a collaborative, joyful, and fun experience in which we play to solve complex problems. According to Jakub Perlak, people can play games that have a meaningful purpose, and have fun in doing so. Games create space for intentional cognitive activity which helps us when learning something new and adapting to changes that are important for agility.
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Why Leading without Blame Matters to Leaders and Teams
According to Diana Larsen, a culture of blame is a waste of human potential. People cannot achieve their best and most creative work when their energy goes into avoiding shame and blame. To lead without blame requires a shift toward learning and curiosity, she argues. It begins by building or restoring a relationship of trust and trustworthiness with the people.
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The Value of Repaying Good Technical Debt
Bad technical debt is the stuff that has been lingering around; teams need to work around it or fix the fallout as a consequence of this bad technical debt. Good technical debt is intentional, enables benefits for the organisation, and is controlled. Teams can use a disciplined approach for managing and repaying technical debt, for instance by using the wall of technical debt.
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How to Become a High-Performing Software Team
The four major elements that enable high-performing software teams are purpose, decentralized decision-making, high trust with psychological safety, and embracing uncertainty. Teams can improve their performance by experimenting with their ways of working.
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Things We Tend to Overlook Going from Architecture to Release
People tend to overlook things when developing a new software product or service because they don’t have to think about them on a daily basis. Companies should create an environment where everyone can express their opinion and concerns and encourage bringing up questions to explore different angles and increase understanding.
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System Initiative Software Goes Open Source; Aims to Model and Automate Infrastructure Management
System Initiative, a customizable power tool, recently open-sourced all of its software under the Apache License 2.0. The release of System Initiative's software to the open-source community aims at improving the DevOps landscape, with a specific emphasis on simulating the user’s infrastructure and using it to manage real-world systems.
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Benefits of Doing Remote Mob Programming in a High Stakes Environment
A new team that needed to work remotely in a high-stakes environment decided to try out mob programming. It helped them to quickly go through forming-storming-norming-performing. With mobbing, the team learned new technologies, found solutions for dealing with others in stressful situations, and discovered how to work effectively together remotely.
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A Collaborative Approach to Web Applications Accessibility
Developers and designers can work together to share knowledge and experience when working on creating accessible applications. Accessibility issues can be treated as any other bug, something that needs to be solved first. Accessibility should be embraced as something very serious and important to society, and approached as a business opportunity.
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Handling Conflicts by Dealing with Emotions
Emotions are at the heart of conflicts, influencing their initiation, escalation and dynamics. Effectively managing your own emotions and understanding those of others can greatly impact the outcome of a conflict. Two steps to be taken are to label emotions, and take control and determine which emotion you want to focus on.
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Navigating Open Source Integration through a DevOps Lens
Taking a DevOps perspective on open source can help to incorporate an OSS project into your environment. DevOps engineers are comfortable with using third-party integrations, and they align with the open source mindset of breaking down barriers between different groups and promoting teamwork.
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Embracing Complexity and Emergence in Organisations
Focusing on the actual emerging organisation and the work people are doing can make a difference in embracing complexity and dealing with it a bit better. Psychological safety is critical for people giving feedback without fearing retribution or negative consequences. Fred Hebert spoke about embracing complexity at QCon New York 2023.
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Cultivating Professional Relationships in Remote Teams
Sumeet Moghe, author of The Async-First Playbook, recently wrote about building cohesive professional relationships in teams. Similarly, Laurie Barth, senior software engineer at Netflix, has written about the use of intentional communication in making remote teams effective. We report on a number of techniques that they have shared for cultivating professional cohesion in remote teams.
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Building a Lifelong Technical Career in Software Development
Technical experience matters because it adds to the value chain. In engineering companies, the technical knowledge accumulated by people over many years can provide the basis for the next generation of products and projects. Sven Reimers spoke about building a lifelong technical career in software development at QCon London 2023.