The Latest Stories

Group of software engineers laughing at their computers Joking Around and Taking Work Seriously

You may be totally serious about your job yet give the impression that you’re not. Laughter and fun help some people tackle the high-priority, stress-inducing problems they face every day, but it can also be misinterpreted by others that they aren't taking their work seriously. How are people perceiving your behavior?

Naomi Karten's picture
Naomi Karten
Blind person using a Braille screen reader How to Make Sure Your Website Is Fully Accessible

Ensuring accessibility to websites, applications, tools, platforms, and other forms of technology is not only a legal requirement; it should also be a social responsibility of web developers, testers, and other software professionals. Here are some basic recommendations to keep in mind to make any website accessible.

David Gevorkian's picture
David Gevorkian
Person pointing at a globe Collaborating with a Highly Distributed Team

Being distributed can cause challenges for team collaboration, such as insufficient communication and a lack of visibility. However, advancements in tools, technology, and best practices have helped to lessen some of those challenges. Here are four ways to make collaborating with distributed teams more seamless.

Owen Gotimer's picture
Owen Gotimer
Agile team member expressing intention Don’t Ask for Permission or Forgiveness—Use an Agile Alternative

Some teams get around bottlenecks by taking a “better to ask forgiveness than permission” approach. This may be expedient, but it doesn’t provide a path to changing the organizational dynamic, and it can lead to wrong decisions when wider input is advisable. A more agile way is to take an “I intend to” approach.

Steve Berczuk's picture
Steve Berczuk
Client yelling into a phone When Customers Attack: Dealing with Rude Clients

It seems like the only way some customers know how to communicate is to accuse, complain, and verbally attack. This only gets worse if there are delays. But when you do your best to build trust with customers early on, they are more likely to accept explanations about setbacks, even if they don’t fully understand them.

Naomi Karten's picture
Naomi Karten
Big data code When to Use MapReduce with Big Data

MapReduce is a programming model for distributed computation on big data sets in parallel. It's a module in the Apache Hadoop open source ecosystem, and a range of queries may be done based on the algorithms available. Here's when it's suitable (and not suitable) to use MapReduce for generating and processing data.

Deepak Vohra's picture
Deepak Vohra
Firefighters putting out a fire Stop Fanning the Flames of Constant Firefighting

Continually having to address unexpected problems interrupts your original sprint activities, causing stress on the team members and fanning the flames for future firefights. But with due diligence, you can lessen the need to constantly put out fires. Here are some steps that can break the cycle of work and rework.

Richard Estra's picture
Richard Estra
Santa Claus talking to a child If Santa Can Be Agile, So Can You

To improve his toy development lifecycle, Santa Claus had the North Pole move to an agile and DevOps approach. Santa knows it's important to accept requirements late in the process, work incrementally, deploy on time, and—above all—focus on the customer. Here’s what he found to be more effective with agile and DevOps.

Jeffery Payne's picture
Jeffery Payne