Discovering Your Leadership Do you think managers are the only leaders in your organization? Nope. We have always needed leaders at all levels of the organization. You might not feel like a leader. How do you discover your leadership? Ellie, a tester working on a supposedly agile team, was worried. The team worked in timeboxes,
I have posted my most recent Pragmatic Manager newsletter on my site. Read Johanna’s 2014 New Years Tips. I have a question for you. I send the newsletter to my subscribers the last week of the year. I call them “this-year” tips. Some people ask me if I mean “the next year”. I don’t because it’s
Johanna’s 2014 New Year’s Tips Every year, I write a tips letter for you, instead of suggesting you try resolutions. Maybe you can incorporate one of these tips to make your 2015 more effective. Tip #1: Create time for your thinking work. You have meetings. You have email. You have voicemail, text messages, and more
A recent coaching client was concerned about the progress his team was making—or really, the lack of progress his team was making. We spoke about the obstacles he had noticed. “The team doesn’t have time to write automated tests. As soon as they finish developing or testing a feature, people get yanked to another project.” “Are people, developers
Do You Have an Abundance or Scarcity Mindset? Have you met people at work who believe in zero-sum games, with one winner and one loser? “You must do my project. I don’t care about anyone else.” That you-against-me is an indication of a scarcity mindset. Some people believe in the abundance mindset where, together, we create
We talk a lot in agile about generalizing specialists. Scott Ambler has a terrific essay on what a generalizing specialist is: Has one or more technical specialties… Has at least a general knowledge of software development. Has at least a general knowledge of the business domain in which they work. Actively seeks to gain new
I was coaching a new client. He’s a senior guy with several directors reporting to him. He had stopped his staff meetings for a while because no one wanted to participate. Hmm. I almost asked him why, but he kept talking. “What do you think of this format for my staff meeting? Everyone does a
Workshop Objective: You may have started with technical component teams long ago. You were all responsible for your own teams, as technical leaders. It made sense then. Now, you need to work together, in an agile or lean organization. This workshop will help you learn how to be technical problem-solving leaders, as a team, in
Workshop Objective: We use influence all the time at work. If you have tried and not been as successful as you like, it’s time to take the next step and learn to discover your personal power and use your influence to accomplish all that you can. Workshop Overview: There is a limit to what we
My manager reviewed the org chart along with the budget. “I need to cut the budget. Which resources can we cut?” “Well, I don’t think we can cut software licenses,” I was reviewing my copy of the budget. “I don’t understand this overhead item here,” I pointed to a particular line item. “No,” he said.