personal improvement
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3 Tactics to Stay Productive with an Agile Schedule The usual productivity tips apply best to those working in a typical office with typical hours. What if you don’t work within a structured schedule? How can you stay productive when work ebbs and flows or occurs outside the typical nine-to-five? Here are three ways to be productive when your schedule is unpredictable. |
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Top 10 TechWell Insights Stories of 2019 Career development was on many software practitioners' minds in 2019, as some of our top stories were about having a technical lead on a Scrum team and making the switch from quality assurance to quality engineering. Stories about new ideas such as DevOps and continuous testing also ranked high. Check out the roundup. |
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Joking Around and Taking Work Seriously You may be totally serious about your job yet give the impression that you’re not. Laughter and fun help some people tackle the high-priority, stress-inducing problems they face every day, but it can also be misinterpreted by others that they aren't taking their work seriously. How are people perceiving your behavior? |
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Security Testing: A Constructive Mindset with a Destructive Approach A typical tester mimics end-users, who are constructive when exploring an application’s functionality. But the role of a security tester is different. Their focus is mainly on mimicking hackers, who are intentionally destructive. A solid security strategy should balance both constructive and destructive efforts. |
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4 Tips to Refocus Stale Standups The daily standup is supposed to get everyone on the same page and make teams more productive and efficient. But it’s easy for this short meeting to become stale and stop providing any real benefit. Here are four ways to get out of the slump of merely delivering status updates and re-energize your daily standups. |
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Beware of Success Stories The tendency to look back and think you know what contributed to a success is called survivorship bias. It occurs when you make a decision or take some action based on past successes while ignoring past failures. That's why it's important to approach reports of successful projects with a healthy dose of skepticism. |
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Lessons Learned from Product Failures Being agile is all about learning from failures and building on experiences. This applies to not just individuals, but even to large organizations. The key is being transparent and objective in accepting and understanding failures, and taking away lessons for future actions and decisions. Just keep innovating. |
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Your Vacation Time Should Be Your Vacation Time Many people can’t take all the vacation time they’re entitled to. Some take it, but they're so constantly in contact that they might as well be in the office. Taking time off reduces stress, improves focus, and even increases productivity once you're back at work, so even if you can't travel, take your vacation time. |
