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What You Can Learn from Failure—and from Success Success and failure teach different lessons. Lessons from failure tend to revolve around what not to do next time around, whereas lessons from success focus on what you can do again, perhaps even better. But whether you experience success or failure, the key is to take the time to learn from what happened. |
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Wordie Update: Merriam-Webster Adds 850 New Words The Merriam-Webster dictionary blog noted they recently added 850 new words and definitions that come from a cross-section of our linguistic culture. It’s good to know that some of the words we’re seeing in the headlines are now being included. |
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3 Must-Read Books for a Good Agile Foundation If you are searching for agile knowledge, there are many books outside the current literature that may enlighten you. Some discuss the underpinnings of concepts we consider agile, while others are contemporary business books that present compelling ways to use agile effectively. Here are three Jeff Payne recommends. |
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Make Time for Learning with Deliberate Practice As software professionals, we need to work continuously to improve our skills. But two common challenges are how to best work to improve, and how to find the time to learn when we’re busy. The answer is deliberate practice—practice with a clear goal and defined measures for success that pushes your usual boundaries. |
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The Key to Avoiding Procrastination If you have a task you've been putting off, dividing it into small chunks is a good idea. But the real key to overcoming procrastination is just getting started. Once you begin, you’ve built momentum and are likely to keep going, doing a little more until you’ve made good progress—and maybe even completed the job. |
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The 5 Levels of Listening: Which Does Your Team Practice? 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. |
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The Spectrum of Negotiation: Using the Right Skills for the Context Negotiation occurs on a spectrum, and different tactics apply in different situations. For instance, you’d treat a one-time transaction differently from an ongoing client relationship you want to nurture. Have you developed effective negotiating skills? Are you applying negotiating skills appropriate for the context? |
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Recognizing and Reversing a Culture of Blame A culture of blame is one in which people are reluctant to accept responsibility for things that go wrong. Finger-pointing becomes an automatic response. It's nearly impossible for one person to reverse a culture of blame alone, but it is possible to demonstrate on a small scale what appropriate behavior looks like. |