The Latest Stories
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If You Want Training to Take, Explore Experiential Learning People typically think of training classes as passive activities, where the instructor talks and the others listen. But experiential learning, where you learn through hands-on activities and then reflect on the experience, often gets the lesson to stick in people's brains better. Consider using interactive lessons. |
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Communicating to Customers That You Care How can you communicate caring to your customers if your job doesn’t lend itself to demonstrating in person how hard you’re trying? Fortunately, showing evidence of caring is not about scurrying around; it’s about interacting with customers in a way that says you’re listening to them and taking their needs seriously. |
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Real-Time Bird Migration Algorithms for Live Tweeting New maps on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s BirdCast website let you track migratory birds in near real time, as well as forecast avian migration up to three days ahead. Pamela Rentz looks at why the when, where, and how far birds will migrate is important. |
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A Tester’s Role in Requirements Exploration Agile is supposed to get people to talk to each other in real time. However, many teams still lack a shared understanding of what they are going to build, even as they start coding. As testers, we can explore feature specifications early, contributing to successful and timely delivery through defined requirements. |
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Testing at 43,000 Feet: Reporting Risk That Matters Many teams' daily testing gets broken down into numbers. If you're used to dashboards, it can be easy to forget the prime objective: to raise up quality issues—or, in the case of safety-critical devices, potential hazards. Graphs are comfortable, but do they really provide the information we should be looking for? |
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Wisdom from Consulting: Getting and Vetting Advice When you hire a consultant, they may appear to have a wealth of experience and knowledge—and may actually have it. But accepting their advice without question is dangerous. Here are some good practices to keep in mind when you're receiving advice, including asking questions, exploring alternatives, and analyzing risks. |
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How to Be a Team Player Some people think of themselves as team players because they're technically savvy, hard workers, and strong contributors. But these traits alone don’t make someone a team player. Teamwork, after all, is the process of working together to achieve a shared goal. Team players collaborate to solve problems. |
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Creating a Company Culture Where Agile Will Thrive A so-called generative culture has all the characteristics necessary to support self-directed teams, shared responsibility, experimentation, and continuous process improvement. But what about the rest of us? Most large organizations don't have a culture where agile will take hold so easily. Here's what needs to change. |
