People & Teams

Why are managers so poor at bringing about change? Why do people often resist and sometimes reject necessary changes? The reality is that people at all levels, from test managers to senior executives, often use flawed practices when trying to implement improvements and necessary changes. Many ignore, trivialize, or fail to act on the human element-the impact of the change on the people affected. Naomi Karten shares practices she has successfully employed to introduce changes and manage improvement efforts, often helping people turn the challenges of change into personal and company successes. In this serious yet lighthearted presentation, Naomi describes the stages many people go through when adjusting to challenging change-from the appearance of a change, to their sometimes-turbulent response, and their ultimate adjustment and acceptance.

Since first published, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People has motivated generations of aspiring leaders to polish up their people skills. Yet imagine the reaction of a typical software quality assurance or test professional opening the book and reading the first principle: Don't criticize, condemn, or complain. "Don't criticize? Isn't that a tester's job!" They turn to the next chapter to find: Give honest and sincere appreciation. "Honest feedback, perhaps, but appreciation with the buggy code we get from the developers?" Concerned, they check out the third chapter: Arouse in the other person an eager want. "Now wait a minute. That sounds like something that would get me called into HR!" It's easy to discount and even parody the lessons from Dale Carnegie's work.

Why do we insist on calling people “resources?” If software projects were a factory, people would be fungible-interchangeable equipment just like desks and computers. Because software development is highly creative work and not a manufacturing factory, we need to manage people as human beings, not as tasks or resources. Johanna Rothman describes how to find and develop the right people for your teams and projects-people who fit your culture, share your values, and will become integral parts of your team. She explores what skills make a team great and how great managers model those skills and reward people who use them to help the project. Find out how to empower your team, including protecting it from bad influences, making sure the team has what it needs, and helping team members learn to be accountable to each other. It's the people working in teams-and not their managers-who make software projects successful.

It is nearly impossible to work in software development and not end up on a project which one day ends as a death march. These projects are characterized by being extremely overdue, significantly over budget, and, at the same time, critical to company success. Death marches can happen regardless of development methodology because the contributing factors often include dramatic scope change, lack of vision, and unrealistic deadlines-factors that are methodology neutral. Bob Hartman shares his experiences with death march projects and the approaches he has used to redirect them into successful efforts. He focuses on how stakeholders can identify and address underlying problems early in the project. Learn how to lead rather than manage, encourage creativity rather than stifle it, and become successful rather than beaten.