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Failing to Staff Turnover: A False Economy If a team member leaves without notice, it slows down a project and puts stress on everyone else as you wait for a replacement. There's not much we can do with surprises, but why don’t we do a better job of planning for those we know are going to leave? Building in some overlap for knowledge transfer should be a given. |
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To Serve Clients Better, Learn Their Perspective If your goal is to improve service delivery to your customers, it's a good idea to ask for and incorporate input from those very customers. Invite your clients to outline priorities, get clarification on points that confuse them, and vent frustrations. They'll appreciate being heard, and you'll both learn a lot. |
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3 Ideas to Prevent ‘All Talk and No Action’ Meetings When many people are speaking in a meeting but it never translates into meaningful actions later on, it can leave us frustrated. But with some planning and collaboration, we can facilitate ways to make it easier for people to communicate better. Here are three ideas for a little less conversation, a little more action. |
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Use Silence as a Powerful Tool to Get Feedback If you want feedback from your users, sometimes the best technique for gathering information is staying silent. After someone responds to your question, instead of continuing the conversation, just pause. This encourages the other person to keep talking, and that's when you may get the most valuable information. |
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Does Your Boss Waste Your Time? It's good to eliminate any time-wasting practices, but that can be tricky when they come from your boss. Manager-imposed time wasters include micromanaging, holding unneeded meetings, requiring unnecessary status reports, and issuing ambiguous instructions. Here's how to broach the subject and get some time back. |
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Who Should Be Doing Automation Work? Testers often look at automation work as the next career step after manual testing. Automation work has more visibility at the project level, and people who do this work usually also tend to have a little more social status. But Justin Rohrman makes a case for why testers shouldn't be the ones doing automation work. |
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Agile Collaboration on Remote Teams The first value in the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools,” and for many teams, being located in the same place facilitates these interactions. However, being part of an effective, collaborative team is less about location than it is about motivation and good practices. |
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Simple Ways to Become a Great Listener In this era of multitasking, you probably excel at listening even as you do other things. But it’s not enough to be skilled at listening if, in the process, you convey the impression that you’re not listening. Make sure the people you're communicating with know you're listening to them by employing these simple tips. |