InfoQ Homepage Empowerment Content on InfoQ
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Unlocking Software Engineering Potential for Better Products
Becoming an empowered team means solving problems rather than shipping features. Empowering software engineers and involving them early in discovery work can result in better products. If we measure outcomes rather than output, we can also hold teams accountable. Supporting software engineers to empower them means trusting them and getting out of their way.
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Establishing Autonomy and Responsibility with Networks of Teams
Working in outdated ways causes people to quit their work. Pim de Morree suggests structuring organizations into networks of autonomous teams and creating meaningful work through a clear purpose and direction. According to him, we can work better, be more successful, and have more fun at the same time.
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Ben Gracewood on Learning from an Organisational Train Wreck
At the recent JAFAC conference, Ben Gracewood told the story of how POS developer Vend transformed their development organisation following catastrophic disruption and losses. He explored what happened after they reduced headcount by over 30%, what they had in place that enabled them to survive, and what they did differently as a result of the changes.
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Q&A with Marisa Fagan on Security Championship
Security lead Marisa Fagan recently spoke at QConLondon 2018 about upskilling and elevating engineering team members into the role of Security Champions. We catch up with Fagen and report on her efforts to address contention caused by a scarcity of security professionals.
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Agile 2017 Keynote: Creating Leadership and Engagement at Every Level
At the recent Agile 2017 conference in Orlando, David Marquet, retired Navy captain and author of best selling book “Turn The Ship Around!” gave an entertaining keynote on intent-based leadership.
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Leadership Fit for the 21st Century: Empowering People is Impossible
This second post in the series on leadership fit for the 21st century covers the talk given by Jenni Jepsen from goAgile in which she explains that we cannot empower people, and provides ideas for creating an organization where people feel empowered.
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Q&A with David Marquet on Applying Intent-based Leadership in Agile
Software engineers can really do a tremendous service to themselves, their co-workers, and the world by stepping up and being a leader from the position they are in. Agile is essentially building a leader-leader model in software organizations says David Marquet. An interview about having leadership at all levels in the organization and applying the leader-leader model in agile.
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Making People Feel Empowered with Intent-based Leadership
Intent-based leadership is about giving control and decision-making power to people who have the information. When we give control to people who have the competence and clarity, we create an environment where great things happen. An interview with Jenni Jepsen about intent-based leadership, giving influence and control to people, and creating an environment where people can feel empowered.
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Turn the Ship Around - Towards Leadership at Every Level
At the Agile Tour London 2015 Wim Heemskerk and Dirk Mulder hosted a session about creating leadership at every level, based on the book Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet. InfoQ interviewed them about how hierarchy can hinder transitioning to agile, why organizations should develop leaders in stead of followers, and on applying leadership lessons from the book to increase the agility.
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Connected Companies Put Customers at the Center of Everything
Dave Gray talked about how a connected company focuses on customer efficiency instead of company efficiency at the No Pants Festival 2015. A connected company has multidisciplinary teams where people work together to deliver a product or service. People working at a connected company feel empowered, they are able to solve problems together and to better serve the needs of their customers.
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Empowered People Control Their Own Career
Fons Leroy, CEO of VDAB (a public employment service in Belgium), talked about how innovation and co-creation has helped strengthen citizens on the labor market. He explored what VDAB is doing to empower citizens to be in the driver seat of their own career. Organizations can use a similar approach to empower employees and increase organizational agility.
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Deploying Transparency and Self Regulating Management to Get Actions Done
At the Lean Kanban France 2014 conference Bjarte Bogsnes gave a keynote presentation about beyond budgeting. In his presentation he talked about the problems with traditional management and how transparency and self regulating management comes to the rescue, and the principles and practices of beyond budgeting.
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Having Leadership Emerge in Organizations
Organizations should create an environment where people feel empowered and trusted, with a culture where leaders can thrive says Pawel Brodzinski. An interview in which Pawel shares his view on leadership and culture, explains what it is that makes leaders thrive in organizations and what organizations can do to create an environment where leadership would emerge.
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Role of Managers in Agile Retrospectives
Agile teams use retrospectives to reflect upon their way of working. Since it’s the team’s own responsibility to continuously improve themselves they have to decide upon the actions that they will do. What can managers do to support their teams when they are doing agile retrospectives?
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Using Retrospectives for Personal Improvement
Agile retrospectives are used by teams to improve their performance, by reflecting on the way of working and defining improvement actions. But retrospectives can also be used for personal improvement, additional to or as a replacement of performance appraisals. Such retrospectives can be done as a one-on-one by a manager and an employee, individually by an employee, or in a team.