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Culture & Methods

Breaking the Taboo – What I Learned from Talking about Mental Health in the Workplace

Mental illness is a topic that does not get discussed openly very often. Many people concerned hide their own history for fear of being stigmatized, especially in the workplace. This is a story about how speaking openly about mental illness, even with your boss and co-workers, can help yourself and others. The author shares with you what she has learned from breaking the taboo.

Sophie Küster
on Jan 28, 2021
Culture & Methods

Learning from Incidents

Jessica DeVita (Netflix) and Nick Stenning (Microsoft) have been working on improving how software teams learn from incidents in production. In this article, they share some of what they’ve learned from the research community in this area, and offer some advice on the practical application of this work.

Jessica DeVita Nick Stenning
on Jan 27, 2021
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book The Power of Virtual Distance

The book The Power of Virtual Distance, 2nd edition, by Karen Sobel Lojeski and Richard Reilly, describes the Virtual Distance Model and provides data and insights from research that can be used to lower Virtual Distance when working remotely together. By doing so, organizations can see quantifiable improvements in both business goals and human well-being among employees.

Ben Linders Karen Sobel Lojeski Richard Reilly
on Dec 02, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book Virtual Teams Across Cultures

The book Virtual Teams Across Cultures, by Theresa Sigillito Hollema, examines what makes multicultural virtual teams tick – why they’re different and how to unlock their potential. This book is a comprehensive guide for reflective leaders who want to bring out the best in distributed, culturally diverse teams.

Ben Linders Theresa Sigillito Hollema
on Nov 18, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book Office Optional

The book Office Optional by Larry English describes how employees from Centric work virtually within a culture that contributes to the business’s success and employee happiness. The stories in this book provide insights into how working remotely looks, building relationships and trust in a virtual environment, managing remote teams, and recruiting and hiring people for remote working.

Ben Linders Larry English
on Sep 30, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book The Art of Leadership

In the book The Art of Leadership, Michael Lopp shares stories of leadership habits and practices. Examples include reading the room, getting feedback, delegation, giving compliments, understanding the culture, and being kind. In the book Lopp describes how he practiced and refined these leadership habits over the years and what he has learned from doing so.

Ben Linders Michael Lopp
on Sep 14, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book Agile Conversations

The book Agile Conversations by Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick explores how productive conversations can change the way organizations develop software. It provides techniques and exercises that can help you gain insight into communication and collaboration issues and improve your day-to-day conversations, achieving valuable business results from your agile team.

Ben Linders Douglas Squirrel Jeffrey Fredrick
on Jul 14, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book Becoming an Effective Software Engineering Manager

The book Becoming an Effective Software Engineering Manager by James Stanier explores how to manage engineers and what managers can do to build and run effective teams. It helps people decide if they want to go from an engineering to a manager role and organize and improve their management activities.

Ben Linders James Stanier
on Jun 30, 2020
Culture & Methods

Exploring Costs of Coordination During Outages - QCon London Q&A

Coordinating different skills, knowledge and experience is necessary for coping with complex, time-pressured events, but it incurs costs. Well-designed coordination is smooth and can be trained for. Learning how to take initiative, being observable to your counterparts and engaging in reciprocity are examples of strategies engineers can use to lower costs of coordination during outages.

Ben Linders Laura Maguire
on May 22, 2020
Culture & Methods

Breaking through Three Common Engineering Myths

This article debunks three common myths that often plague engineers and may be holding them back from reaching their full potential, especially if they are a current or aspiring engineering leader. It also provides some actionable ideas you can implement right away to start making a shift in your own life away from these limiting beliefs.

Jeff Perry
on Mar 11, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book How to Lead in Product Management

The book How to Lead in Product Management by Roman Pichler provides solutions for product managers and product owners to lead development teams and stakeholders. It covers practices like building trust, setting product goals, listening and speaking, resolving conflict, and securing buy-in to product decisions in order to achieve product success.

Ben Linders Roman Pichler
on Mar 09, 2020
Culture & Methods

Q&A on the Book Unleashing the Power of Diversity

The book Unleashing the Power of Diversity by Bjørn Z. Ekelund describes the Diversity Icebreaker, an experiential communication exercise where people learn about themselves and others. The differences are named Red, Blue and Green, a language of diversity that is relevant for interaction, problem solving, giving feedback, and creating inclusiveness and trust.

Ben Linders Bjørn Ekelund
on Feb 19, 2020