Manual testing might not be as all-important as it once was, but it’s still needed if you have any hope of delivering software at a quality you can be proud of. How we create software is going to continue to change, but the burden of that change needs to be handled by more than one group within the industry.

You can’t solve the problem unless you know what that problem is, and you can’t rekindle your creativity if you just don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Pinpoint your team’s purpose, let everyone on your team contribute, and rekindle the innovative nature at the core of agile.

The ways we listen—and not listen—are detailed in the Five Levels of Listening model, which goes from most distracted to most focused. Ideally, we’d all practice the fifth level: empathic listening, where we try to understand what matters to the person who is speaking, delaying our problem-solving and responsiveness.