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To Improve Agile Teamwork, Think about the Individuals Given the emphasis on teams, it can be easy to forget that agile has the value of individuals and interactions as a central principle. As much as an effective team dynamic is what makes Scrum work, teams are composed of individual people, and it’s important to acknowledge each person's role and to express appreciation. |
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Develop Stronger Client Relationships through Empathetic Action There’s a big difference between simply saying "I feel your pain" and displaying evidence of empathy. When dealing with clients' complaints and issues, do more than try to understand what they're going through. Aim to communicate early, often, and with sincere concern. It will improve the situation for them—and you. |
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Catch Small Failures Early with Agile Practices Agile is designed to keep failures small and manageable. It’s essential to be able to talk about small failures and ways to improve during the retrospective so that the teams can advance their agile practices. If your teams can’t talk about their small failures openly, there is a great risk of bigger troubles soon. |
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If You’re Working Too Much, Is It a Challenging Project or Bad Management? Projects sometimes encounter challenges that require team members to put in extra work. But if this is happening repeatedly, it's worth figuring out where the pressure is coming from. You may need to ask, “Is this project simply challenging, or is it being badly managed?” |
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Something to Remember When Managing Change at Work Grieving is usually associated with the loss of a loved one, but it’s equally relevant to loss triggered by changes in the workplace. If you are introducing or overseeing a change, it’s a mistake to belittle people’s reaction to the loss or excessively tout the benefits of the new way. Be sensitive to those affected. |
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Can Remote Workers Ever Really Make Effective Agile Teams? As the Agile Manifesto states, agile teams should value individuals and interactions, and traditionally, this implies being in the same room. While technology makes collaboration at a distance more viable, some feel that collocation helps with delivering quickly. Can remote workers ever make effective agile teams? |
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Want to Be a More Effective Leader? Conduct a Listening Tour Leaders who are moving into a new position should hold what’s called a listening tour. This lets the person doing the touring hear what’s on the minds of subordinates or team members. It helps a new leader get the lay of the land while also allowing the people they’ll be leading to express their thoughts or concerns. |
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What’s in the Summer 2017 Issue of Better Software Magazine It can be a challenge to develop software solutions on a variety of operating system platforms. Browser-based apps support some degree of platform independence with HTML 5, but web apps aren't usually as robust as desktop apps. Our cover story removes the mystery of how to create apps for both Windows and macOS. |
