collaboration

A Win-Win versus a Win-Lose Approach to Conflict

Too often when people address a conflict, they take an I-win-you-lose approach. That distracts from focusing on opportunities for agreement and can make ongoing relationships difficult. When people have to work together, the wise approach is one that serves the best interests of both parties.

Naomi Karten's picture
Naomi Karten
Agile and Fear Come Hand in Hand

If you’re looking to make the whole organization agile—through iterative work cycles, continuous improvement, and direct feedback from customers—fear has to be involved to some degree. But in order to foster a culture of honesty and trust, this uneasiness will have to be overcome.

Josiah Renaudin's picture
Josiah Renaudin
What Do You Do When You’re Stuck on a Problem?

Some problems we can resolve on our own in a couple of minutes. Some take more time, or we can’t resolve them alone. What do you do then? Johanna Rothman suggests scheduling a timebox to find a solution alone, then if that doesn't work, using one of the ideas in this story to "unstick" yourself.

Johanna Rothman's picture
Johanna Rothman
How Testing Is Changing for the DevOps World

The role of software testing and quality assurance is becoming increasingly important in a DevOps setup. This position has undergone a lot of change in the testing practices used, tools leveraged, and the shift in skill set and mindset of practitioners, and testers have a lot to learn from DevOps.

Mukesh Sharma's picture
Mukesh Sharma
Marriage Counseling and DevOps

Some organizations suffer from a dysfunctional silo culture, with dev and ops working completely separate. Trying to solve problems can feel like marriage counseling, with each side failing to identify what to do to improve their relationship. Just as in counseling, what they need is communication.

Bob Aiello's picture
Bob Aiello
Become an Estimation Leader

Single-point estimates, whether they are for a budget or a schedule, are never correct. Things happen. Demanding that your team provide you an exact number and then treating that as a guarantee is not being a good manager—or being agile. What if you could provide a different estimation leadership?

Johanna Rothman's picture
Johanna Rothman
Does Agile Really Have Staying Power?

It’s crazy to think just how far we’ve come since the term "agile" was introduced into software development back in 2001, as it seems like just about every company is incorporating these faster, more collaborative techniques into development and testing teams. But can agile be considered a fad?

Josiah Renaudin's picture
Josiah Renaudin
How DevOps Is Now Driving Agile

Like agile, people are quickly adopting and making great use of DevOps, which stresses communication, automation, and a strong sense of cooperation within a team. Yet, while it can be argued that agile spawned DevOps, some software veterans argue that it’s DevOps that’s actually pushing agile.

Josiah Renaudin's picture
Josiah Renaudin