People and Teams
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Providing Value as a Leader: More Than Just Being the Boss As a leader, your job is not to be the boss and check on every task, but to provide value to your team, helping them grow, learn to fix things, and make decisions without you. One of the best ways to provide value is by asking questions. Questions clarify expectations, confirm understanding, and build relationships. |
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Agile Tips to Make the Most of Conferences Time spent at a conference is precious, so you should make sure there is a return on that investment. What better way than to leverage agile ideas? Here are a few tips based on the principles behind the Agile Manifesto—embrace change, collaborate with others, and more—for making the most of attending a conference. |
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A Goal to Get You Writing NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month—is a month off, but it’s not too soon to commit to participate. The goal is to write 50,000 words (about 175 pages) during November. That may seem crazy, but there's lots of guidance and support available online and in local writer chapters. Break through that writer's block! |
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How Embracing Differences Makes More Robust Agile Teams On any team, there are bound to be some differences. But even though work styles may differ from what you expect, they may not be problematic simply because they are different. Before making assumptions about what a teammate is doing or why, just ask to find out. Their differences may bring a helpful new perspective. |
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Creating a Community of Testers Many teams are divided by product or feature, with only one dedicated tester per team. How do you learn and grow in your career when you’re disconnected from your peers? One solution is to create your own community of testers that spans the organization. Here are some ideas to start and facilitate a Quality Guild. |
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Stop Email Overload and Communicate Better Many of us fire off correspondence to groups and distribution lists that include more recipients than necessary, and we overcommunicate without stopping to think about exactly what needs to be conveyed. Here are some ways organizations and teams can cope with the influx of information and communicate intentionally. |
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Making the Product and Development Partnership Thrive The product manager and the development lead partnering well together is a cornerstone of great product teams. The behavior they exhibit sets the standard for how the team cooperates, connects, and thrives. One great way to do this is getting closer to your customer. Here’s how this advice works with both protagonists. |
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DevOps Transformations for QA Teams: A Slack Takeover with Stacy Kirk Thought leaders from the software community are taking over the TechWell Hub to answer questions and engage in conversations. QA architect an agile coach Stacy Kirk, founder of QualityWorks Consulting Group LLC and nodeqa.io, hosted this Slack takeover and discussed improving teams by implementing DevOps practices. |
