People and Teams
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Don’t Fall Victim to the Fundamental Attribution Error Before jumping to a conclusion about a particular situation, try to see circumstances from the other person’s perspective. Consider possible explanations for the person’s behavior that are based on the situation, not the person’s character. Work runs more smoothly when you assume actions have a good and logical reason. |
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Drafting the Right Software Professional for Your Fantasy Team Teams are systems made up of individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. When people are cooperating on a team—whether in software development or football—sometimes those strengths and weaknesses can be complementary, and other times they can be out of alignment. Be sure to draft the player your team needs. |
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Aesop and Agile: A Moral for Effective Teamwork When a manager sees a problem on their team, they often want to act quickly to correct it. But if you take a “fix it” mentality too far, while you might get past the initial impediment, you have done little to help the team work better in the future. Let's look at another approach, based on one of Aesop's Fables. |
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Alleviate Employees’ Stress through One-on-Ones Simply having one-on-ones because they’re expected is not enough to realize their potential. To make one-on-ones effective, as the manager, you’ve got to be available, prepared, and engaged. It has to be more than a one-way status update. Here's how to use these meetings to promote trust, growth, and creativity. |
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Surviving the Invasive Plants Apocalypse with Citizen Science Apps There are more than 6,500 invasive plant species in the US that threaten native flora and fauna. Mobile apps can be tools that let citizen scientists help researchers collect data on invasive plants. Here's a roundup of apps that let you track these species by collecting photos, coordinates, and sighting information. |
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Simple Ways to Improve Your Presentation Skills If you want to improve your presentation skills, then whenever you attend a presentation, pay attention not just to the content, but also to the delivery of that content. In doing so, note what strikes you as positive or negative about the presentation. Then strive to emulate the positives and avoid the negatives. |
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Do’s and Don’ts for Having a Technical Lead on a Scrum Team Technical leads can be useful, both within the dev team and as a go-between. But is that a good idea on a Scrum team, which should be self-organizing? There is nothing wrong with having a technical lead on your team, as long as the role doesn’t impede the team. Here's where a tech lead can help or hurt a Scrum team. |
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Beware the Bad Apple: 3 Types to Watch for on a Team We all know some obvious personality types that can be less than ideal to work with. However, there are other personality traits you may want to beware of as well. Although these characteristics may seem perfectly harmless on the surface, in excess they can be just as dangerous to a project as the more glaring types. |
