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Leadership & Management
Grassroots Process
As your company scales, it’s natural to think about implementing new processes to help you control, coordinate, or communicate. As workload and output increase, it becomes harder and harder to stay on top of it all. You feel completely out of the loop. The solution must be more process, right? Wrong.
In our latest Leadership & Management article, Mike Karampalas details why it's important to avoid adding more process to your team and the right way to do it when it's truly needed.
Restoring Sanity to the Office
The modern work environment is a disjointed, interruption infested cacophony of distractions, with limited time for actual work. In this Harvard Business Review podcast and accompanying article, Sarah Green Carmichael and Jason Fried discuss ways to make working at the office more pleasant and productive. Tips include silent Thursdays, asynchronous communication, and limiting chat interactions to things that don't really matter. Listen (or read) to learn how to start shifting the culture at your office and make it a better environment for getting work done.
Don't Simply Be The Manager You'd Love To Have
Marc G Gautheir reminds us that as managers we need to think beyond being someone we would love to work for. Different managerial styles work well for some people but not others. Unless you are managing a team of clones, find a few different management approaches that you like and work with your team to determine what's right for each of them.
How the Best Managers Keep Star Talent
Ever hear the saying "People leave managers, not companies"? It's true. To prevent your team from leaving, read this article from Matt Trainer where he outlines how successful managers apply situational leadership and custom coaching to each of their individual reports to keep them engaged. Matt also provides a simple framework to help you assess what approach will work best given each of your employee's stage of development. Check it out and build a stronger, more confident team.
Productivity & Estimation
Zombie Scrum
The folks at Leading Agile describe a phenomenon that can strike a scrum team called "Zombie Scrum." They argue that once a team has reaped the early benefits of transitioning to scrum (delivery effectiveness, stakeholder satisfaction, team morale), the shine wears off and people become apathetic and disengaged. If you notice this on your team, it may be a signal that you're ready to move beyond beginner-level practices and bend or break some of the scrum rules to restore your team's enthusiasm.
Run your startup the Toyota way
Toyota has had a massive impact on how software is built. From Lean to Kanban to JIT, they created or are the foundation of many methodologies in use today. In this article, Kristen Hall-Geisler looks at today's Toyota Production System, its three main pillars, and how you can use them as a foundation for how you run your startup.
Dual Track Development is not Duel Track
How well does your team operate in "Discovery vs. Development" modes? In this fantastic article from Jeff Patton, he explores the concept of Dual Track Development and debunks some of the myths and misconceptions that are associated with it. If you want to avoid building things people don't want, make sure you have a disciplined discovery process that works in concert with development. And if you are scratching your head wondering, "What's discovery?" you need to read this.
People & Culture
A mythical full stack developer
Are you a "full stack" developer? How about front-end or back-end? Does it matter? What really matters in software development is your ability to learn quickly, adapt, and figure things out on the fly. "Technology will evolve, there will always be new programming languages and frameworks. You might want to stop chasing the latest tools and rather become excellent at figuring stuff out."
Only Slightly Off-Topic
How Traffic Lights Affect UX: Color & UIs
You don't need to be an expert in color theory to know that green, yellow, and red have certain connotations associated with them. In this interesting article from Ben Mulholland, he explores the "the traffic lights of UX" and their impact on UI design.
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