collaboration

Articles

What Makes Kubernetes Agile What Makes Kubernetes Agile

One of the Agile principles is simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done is essential. Kubernetes provides simplicity through different features based on the Single Responsibility Principle for decoupling, and through automating tasks such scaling, resource allocation, and making updates.

Deepak Vohra's picture Deepak Vohra
Moon Communication on the Moon

While watching For All Mankind, an American science fiction series on AppleTV+, Derk-Jan has recognized 3 take-aways that will assist with agile collaboration and communication.

Derk-Jan de Grood's picture Derk-Jan de Grood
Agile team all putting their hands in for a high five How to Nail Agile Collaboration and Build Better Products

The rapid rate of technological change is forcing enterprises to reinvent themselves and provide more flexible approaches, so agile transformations are key. However, knowing that agile is important is one thing, but the ability to properly implement the main principles, tools, and techniques of agile is another. Let’s explore time-tested agile principles that will help your organization build innovative products that customers love.

Matthew Chen's picture Matthew Chen
Agile team member having a virtual meeting from home Agile Value Delivery: A Critical Component of Virtual Meetings

The recent surge in virtual meetings necessitates an entirely new set of desirable behaviors. But how do you keep participants engaged and material useful and on topic remotely, when it's hard enough to do that with everyone in the same room? The key is keeping value delivery front and center. Here are some tips and best practices for virtual meetings that will help you continue to deliver value.

Joe Schofield's picture Joe Schofield

Better Software Magazine Articles

How Can I Develop the Ability to Collaborate?

In this installment of FAQ, SQE Trainer Bob Payne and consultant Ryan Olivett answer one of the questions students ask them most often.

Bob Payne's picture Bob Payne Ryan Olivett
Strengthen Your Discovery Muscle

An organization shouldn’t spend all its time building its delivery muscle without simultaneously building its discovery muscle. In fact, successful software teams deliver great products because they invest in discovery. Learn how to expand your innovation and strengthen your discovery muscle.

Agile Teamwork: Three Ways to Minimize Handoffs

Rather than rely on large handoffs between specialties, high-performing Scrum teams learn to do a little bit of everything all the time during a sprint. To do this effectively, teams must make three changes: shift from writing about requirements to talking about them, reduce the size of handoffs and make them more frequently, and pay more attention to the size of the product backlog items that they bring into their sprints.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Creative Agility

Many new products being developed require the contribution of artists and other such "creatives," but artists often view the creative process as an organic thing that cannot be analyzed, dissected, or reduced to a set of defined practices without killing it. This article explores barriers such as these to the introduction of agile methods and how these barriers can be overcome.

Clinton  Keith 's picture Clinton Keith

Interviews

Melissa Benua Whole Team Quality: A Conversation with Melissa Benua
Video

Melissa Benua, director of engineering at mParticle, chats with TechWell community manager Owen Gotimer about the importance of whole team quality, how to get started using the test pyramid, and how developers can start writing testable code.

Owen Gotimer's picture Owen Gotimer
Marcia Buzzella Improving Communication and Social Skills: An Interview with Marcia Buzzella
Video

Marcia Buzzella, an independent leadership consultant and strengths coach, discusses the importance of communication and social skills in a business atmosphere. She offers advice on tools to recognize your weaknesses in those areas and how to work toward improving your effectiveness.

Jennifer Bonine's picture Jennifer Bonine
Selena Delesie Discovering the Soul of Agile: An Interview with Selena Delesie
Podcast

In this interview, Selena Delesie, an international leadership and transformation coach and trainer, explains how your team can find the soul of agile, why some agile teams lack creativity, and who on your team should become a leader.

Josiah Renaudin's picture Josiah Renaudin
Jess Agile Improv Agile, Improv, and Learning How to Fail: An Interview with Jessie Shternshus
Podcast

In this interview, Jessie Shternshus, the owner and founder of The Improv Effect, explains the similarities between agile development and improvisation. She details how, in both cases, team members need to learn how to support each other, build on work, and be comfortable with failure.

Josiah Renaudin's picture Josiah Renaudin

Conference Presentations

Agile Dev West 2018, Better Software West 2018, DevOps West 2018 Three-Minute Improv Games to Improve Your Teams
Slideshow

The problem with many agile teams is that they simply never become a team. This often manifests itself as team members feeling unsafe or not quite trusting each other. This workshop will show you how the same techniques improv theater troupes use to improve collaboration, creativity, and communication can be used to help agile teams, too. The three-minute improv warm-up games Wayde Stallmann will lead you through in this session—including improv's famous "yes, and" technique—will help you learn to establish trust, improve collaboration, and learn how to provide a safe environment for your team to bond. You also will get a flier explaining the top twenty improv games, allowing you to leave with actionable material to use immediately upon returning to work so that you can help your team reach its full potential.

Wayde Stallmann
STAREAST 2018 Make Your Team Awesome—Yes, You Can!
Slideshow

The key to creating high-performing teams is psychological safety—the ability to be vulnerable in front of others even when they hold diverse viewpoints, and the opportunity to take risks and trust that everything will be OK. However, creating this safety is easier said than done. Maaret Pyhäjärvi shares her story of working with software development and test teams to enable them to be awesome. She explains how to reinforce the positive while enabling great software product development by empowering others in your team. Maaret explores how to be brave when others are not, and how to care for and build safety for others. She describes being a catalyst for your team, emphasizing learning—always with safety as a prerequisite. Today, Maaret uses her position as a tester not only to test every part of the software but also to build the collaboration habits of the team, delivering actionable information to improve product quality.

Maaret Pyhäjärvi
Collocated East Logo Teamwork Tools: Movement Games for Collaboration and Creativity
Slideshow

Are you looking for new ways to invigorate your teams? Do retrospectives seem stale? Do story breakdown meetings feel flat? On the other hand, maybe your teams are humming and you’re looking for additional variety. The research is clear—movement matters, and play stimulates creativity. 

Andrew Smith
Overcome DevOps Adoption Barriers to Accelerate Software Delivery
Slideshow

Many organizations want to create systems delivered in a DevOps framework with diverse services implemented via API building blocks. Chris Haddad says that people, processes, and tools often hinder a team's ability to comply with security policies, streamline collaboration, and rapidly...

Chris Haddad, WSO2

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