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Management Myth #8: I Can Still Do Significant Technical Work The temptation can be incredibly strong for managers—especially new ones—to step in when a technical problem arises. But, that isn’t a very good show of faith in one’s team members. Johanna Rothman writes that as a manager, you have to delegate a problem and leave it delegated.
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The Independent Tester Has the agile world’s insistence on collaboration blown away the need for testers to be independent? What do we mean by “independence,” anyway? Consultant Fiona Charles argues that tester independence is essential, but that it is a state of mind that can thrive only when the whole organizational culture supports it.
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For Programs, Short Is Beautiful Johanna Rothman describes that for programs, since you have many teams, you want shorter iterations and small stories in order to make sure you have as many interconnection points with the rest of the feature teams as possible.
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Management Myth #7: I Am too Valuable to Take a Vacation There's a common myth among managers—that they are the only drivers and decision makers for their teams and, therefore, can't take time off. In reality, regardless of the team or workgroup you manage, your team makes decisions without you all the time.
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Do You Need to Write Test Cases? Writing test cases can be a time-consuming activity, and approaches vary from comprehensive test plans to more casual and exploratory cases. What factors should influence your approach? We take a look at a couple of these factors to help you guide your project and team to success.
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Anger Management Have you ever felt like screaming at a customer, clobbering your manager, or trashing a teammate’s favorite digital device? Occasional anger is normal, but frequent anger can be harmful.
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Overcome Marketing Analysis Paralysis: Three Steps to Agile Marketing If you’re not actively marketing all the time, you’re letting the parade pass you by. To take advantage of ever-present, ever-changing opportunities, your team can use agile techniques to help with marketing.
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Give Positive Feedback Before Negative? Maybe Not Many people are familiar with the build-break-build method of starting with positive feedback, then the negative, and then more positive. But is that the most effective way to convey your compliments and criticism? Recent research has been done to determine the most effective, and polite method.
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Management Myth #6: I Can Save Everyone Not every employee is salvageable, and it’s almost always a case of cultural fit. If you’ve provided honest and open feedback and the employee can’t or won’t change, it’s up to the manager, or the self-managing team, to help the employee move on.
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Reaching a Shared Understanding Great things can come from teams that collaborate on projects, but reaching a shared understanding isn't always an easy task. With a variety of backgrounds and opinions, team members often face difficulty in coming to agreement. We looked into the causes for these roadblocks, and how to avoid them.
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