The Latest Stories
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Don’t Be a Work Martyr—Use Your Vacation Time Almost half of American workers who are entitled to paid vacation days don’t use some of them. But few people can work nonstop without a decrease in productivity, an increase in errors, or a grouchy attitude. Taking time off improves your work-life balance, recharges your batteries, and reduces burnout. Use your days! |
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Using Systems Thinking to Extend Your Test Automation Power When automated tests work perfectly one day but fail for no discernible reason the next, it's easy to get frustrated with automation. But you don't have to stay in the dark. Many of the tools we use today allow us to extend their reach with some custom code. Just use some systems thinking and a little imagination. |
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Robots and Origami: Designing and 3D Printing Foldable Robots Origami is no longer limited to folding a sheet of paper into a crane. Now there’s Interactive Robogami, a new system under development from researchers at MIT that gives those of us who are neither a roboticist nor a mechanical engineer the tools to design our own robots. |
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Automation Needs Strategy, Leadership, and Real Testing Skills The people behind your automation tools need to understand how the testing is done. You want your automation people to be able to write their own test cases, understand the domain so that they know what they’re automating should be automated, and have an overall solid testing foundation. |
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Have You Eaten Your Own Dog Food Lately? How often do you use your company’s website? It’s important to periodically “eat your own dog food”—that is, use your own product or services in order to work out the kinks so your customers don’t have to. A good user experience can mean the difference between someone using your product over your competitor's. |
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What Does Effective Communication Really Mean? The ability to communicate effectively is not just nice to have, but a must-have for many IT positions. Still, the term “communication skills” is vague, and it’s reasonable to ask what it actually entails. Think about making a list of communication skills to use when evaluating job candidates—or job hunting yourself. |
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4 Ways to Restore Purpose to Your Daily Scrum The daily scrum was created to help the Scrum team meet its sprint goal. Unfortunately, answering the three daily questions can turn a synchronization and planning meeting into a status report. Here are four ways to make sure your team members are collaborating about their work and are ready to tackle the next day. |
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Growing Generalized Specialists on an Agile Team A generalized specialist is not a jack of all trades. It is an individual with deep knowledge in a particular specialization who also has learned to be productive in other team roles. Here are some tips on how to grow generalized specialists on your team in order to maximize your team's productivity potential. |
