You're reading Leading Software People, a curated newsletter for people who are managing software teams, brought to you by Status Hero.
Team Communication
50/25 Meeting Format
Want an easy way to make meetings more focused and productive? Rajiv Pant of the Wall Street Journal outlines the 50/25 meeting format. By simply reducing hour-long meetings to 50 minutes and half-hour meetings to 25, you'll get just as much done in the meetings AND give your team valuable time back to get work done between meetings - keeping them more focused during them.
Leadership & Management
18 Blogs, Books, and Podcasts For New Managers
At Status Hero, we know that going from maker to manager is one of the hardest transitions to make. In our latest Leadership & Management article, we list the resources our users recommend most for new managers. There are great blogs, books, and podcasts that will make you a better leader and help you build great teams.
If You Aspire to Be a Great Leader, Be Present
How present are you when engaging with your team? Are you easily distracted? Does your mind wander while others are speaking? In this HBR article by Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, learn why presence is so important for employee morale and how to use mindfulness to combat your biggest distraction - your inner voice.
Productivity & Estimation
Daily Standups with Clubhouse
Our friend Camille Emefa Acey from Clubhouse provides tips for making your daily standup more productive - whether you're doing scrum, kanban, or waterfall. Shameless plug - we recently added a Clubhouse integration (along with a bunch of other ones too!).
People & Culture
How to Rands
In another great article from Rands, he creates a "user guide" for himself. It includes what to expect in an average week, working preferences, principles, and quirks. Use this template as a prompt to think about how you onboard new team members. Are you making it clear upfront to them what they can expect? Maybe you should start documenting your own preferences, principles, and styles to make it easier for employees to come up to speed quickly.
Only Slightly Off-Topic
This Is How To Increase Your Attention Span: 5 Secrets From Neuroscience
For most people, it's becoming harder and harder to stay focused. In fact, the average person cannot focus on a single task for more than 3-5 minutes. Erik Barker, author of Barking up the Wrong Tree breaks down five things you can do to increase your attention span: stop multitasking, exercise, meditate, spend time in nature, and reduce distractions. Check out the article and get focused.
5 recommendations on how to maintain the code quality and keep your self-development, when nobody cares
Natalya Maksimenko likes when her code looks good. The problem is that clients and business owners don't often care. She outlines five key problems that can lead to her transforming into a "code monkey". From insufficient task specifications to not having enough time to test, learn how Natalya solves each of the five problems so she can maintain code quality and, most importantly, her happiness.
Have you tried Status Hero yet?
Status Hero is a lightweight tool for tracking daily goals, activity, and status updates from your team. It works with your existing tools, like email, Jira, GitHub, Trello, and Slack. Skip costly meetings, map goals to accomplishments, and unearth blocking issues quickly. Status Hero helps you and your team get more done with fast access to the big picture. Check out a live demo).