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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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Do Most Agile Teams Lack Creativity and Innovation? 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. |
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Make a Point of Appreciating Others—and Yourself Offering appreciation is an easy yet powerful way to acknowledge a coworker’s efforts. It’s one of the best ways to say thank you. There are many ways to show appreciation, including verbally in person, over the phone or by email, or writing a note. And while you're at it, reflect on what you appreciate about yourself. |
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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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Becoming a Charismatic Leader Charismatic leaders can accomplish some things that may be more difficult for leaders who aren’t charismatic: They can sell the vision in a way that makes people buy into the possibilities. They can inspire people to do their best and thereby achieve results that other leadership styles can’t do as readily. |
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Security Is Critical, So Why Don’t We Take It Seriously? Once you move into banking applications or anything related to healthcare, it becomes more and more important for developers and testers to guarantee that all the data they’re gathering from their users is locked behind the biggest, most bulletproof safe you’ve ever seen. |
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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. |
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The Dangers of Underplanning in Your Agile Projects Agile coaches often stress the importance of not overplanning because work is later changed or never done at all. But consequently, many teams then fall victim to underplanning and aren't equipped for a successful project. Here are some planning activities that are critical to do before your sprints start. |
