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2 Good Practices Agile Says You Don’t Need There are lots of good practices that people will tell you aren’t agile. Usually this comes from people who read a book on Scrum or Extreme Programming and took it literally. But agile is not methods and tools associated with a particular methodology; as long as you follow the agile principles, anything is fair game. |
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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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A Musical Metaphor for Agile Estimation Many explanations of relative sizing in agile estimation fail to capture the mix of knowledge, skill, and effort involved in completing a task. Learning to play a song seems to capture the core ideas of estimation. With a metaphor, it is easier to come up with baselines to estimate against for your own agile sizing. |
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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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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. |
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6 Signs Your Agile Project Isn’t Really Agile There's a trend of organizations declaring they are agile without actually changing how they develop software. Declaring that an apple is an orange doesn’t make it so. These six key indicators can help you determine whether your agile project isn’t really agile after all—and give you some solutions to help. |
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15 Traits of Effective Leaders It's helpful for leaders to have technical skills and abilities, but interpersonal attributes are more important for what makes a truly great leader. This list is about attitudes and behaviors—choices you can make to improve your leadership. These fifteen characteristics are a good foundation for effective leaders. |
