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Making the Most of Your Team’s Creativity When people on your team have creative ideas, how do you decide which ones are worth pursuing? Research suggests that neither an idea's creator nor the creator's manager is the best person to predict whether an idea will be a success. Read on to learn what you should do to foster and evaluate creative ideas. |
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A Strange Story of Version Control and Software Customization As he was doing an inventory of a company’s commercial software and version control, Payson Hall got an odd response from a vendor: Their software has no versions. Each client has a unique, customized edition of the software. How can the vendor possibly support that many products? How would that work? |
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What’s a Tech Lead? Decoding This Developer Role The role of technical lead can be hard to define, and in many cases people accept the role without knowing its definition. Because new tech leads are used to programming, many focus too much on the technical aspects and not enough on the people and the team. Read on to learn what's required of this role. |
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Look to Corporate Standards to Guide Your Organization In large organizations with distributed teams, departments can have their own procedures, acting as if they are in completely isolated silos. One approach to solving this issue is establishing corporate standards. Tap the models of widely used standards to create practical guidance for your own organization. |
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Drawing Motivation for Software Development Teams from Unlikely Places What do football or a submarine command have to do with agile success? At first, you might say, "Nothing." But football coaches, submarine captains, and their teams all have to establish a clear vision, analyze and prepare, and manage risks and adapt. Metaphors from other fields can motivate agile teams. |
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How to Deal with an Underperforming Employee (without Making It Awkward) Sometimes, an employee's ability just falls short of what your team needs. Talking to an employee about his performance can be uncomfortable, but it doesn't need to be. You need to make sure they know what’s expected of them, what kind of improvements you’re seeking, and how you’ll gauge their improvements. |
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Who’s Responsible for What? Use a RACI Matrix to Keep It Straight As projects get larger and more complex, roles and responsibilities can become confusing. To clarify, teams can create a RACI matrix: a chart that shows who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed for any work product. Each role has a different level of authority, so everyone knows their duty. |
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Dealing with Know-It-Alls A know-it-all is a person who is always ready with an unsolicited opinion—and a lengthy one, at that. Being on the receiving end of a lecture on something you don't care about or an uninvited correction is tedious at best. Naomi Karten provides ways to deal with a coworker or superior who's a know-it-all. |
