InfoQ Homepage Leadership Content on InfoQ
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Improving Productivity without Formal Metrics
Ron Jeffries has started writing a series of fictional stories based on his observation of real teams. The first story (Kate Oneal: Productivity) focuses on the character Kate O'Neal (CTO) and one of her teams "Rimshot". In this episode Ron explores achieving and measuring Productivity improvements without formal metrics.
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Interview: Johanna Rothman on Schedule Games and other Organizational Dysfunctions
Johanna Rothman is an organizational consultant, coach and co-creator of the AYE conference (Accelerate Your Effectiveness). Deborah Hartmann interviewed her at Agile2007 about her third management book - and discovered that there are names for some of the the scheduling games that cause us to spin our wheels, including: Bring Me A Rock, Queen of Denial and Pants on Fire!
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Apple Manager Writes "Managing Humans" to Help Techies
It’s Michael Lopp’s belief that developers are trained to manage bits well, but not humans. When developers are promoted to managers much harm can be inflicted. Michael uses stories and humour to warn us of the many perils of management and how to navigate around them.
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Interview: Patrick Curran discusses the Java Community Process
In this interview, new JCP chairman Patrick Curran discusses his goals for the JCP, what role standards play, the interactions between innovation and standardization, the impact of OpenJDK, the Java SE TCK and Apache Harmony, the shift in application servers from Java EE to SOA, future Java technology standardization, interesting and successful JSRs, and the future of the JCP.
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Leading Troubled Projects: Secure Your Own Oxygen Mask First
Fiona Charles' recent StickyMinds article looked at leading troubled projects. Stressing that "this is not the time for rigid process over progress," she provided valuable insights to help a team turn around a troubled project. She also reminded us to watch out for improvement: if there is none it could be a Death March, and time to leave.
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QCon Panel: What will the Future of Java Development Be?
In this panel from QCon San Francisco, Joshua Bloch, Chet Haase, Rod Johnson, Erik Meijer and Charles Nutter discussed and debated the future of the Java language and APIs based upon the lessons we have learned from the past. Topics included static versus dynamic languages, removing code from Java, forking the JVM, and the next big programming language.
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Can Architects Stop Financial Ruin and Market Meltdowns?
The purported fraud by Jerome Kerviel at Société Générale may bring down a major financial institution and may have caused markets to tumble worldwide. Attention has turned to systems intended to prevent fraud and other illegal activities. What role can software architects play in detecting and avoiding fraud and other suspicious behavior?
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50 Developers Answer: What Do You Want Your CIO to Know About Agile?
Trying to explain the benefits of Agile Software Development to your CIO? Does your boss want some outside validation? Esther Schindler asked more than 50 developers and Agile practitioners one question: "If you could get the boss to understand one thing, just one thing, related to agile development...what would it be? Why that?".
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Questioning the Retrospective Prime Directive
The 'Retrospective Prime Directive' is commonly used in retrospectives to encourage deep learning without recriminations. But what do you do when you *can't* agree that you "understand and truly believe" that everyone did their best? In this InfoQ article, a group of senior practitioners discusses the benefits and difficulties of using this practice.
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InfoQ Presentation: Selecting the Right Methodology and Steering it to Success
It's easy to agree with "anything more than 'barely sufficient' in is waste," but it's more complicated when we actually need to customize a process for a particular project. At Agile2006 Todd Little shared a model to help leaders choose the right flavour of Agile based on project and team attributes, and he emphasised the need to actively steer projects as development progresses.
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Are You An Agile Architect?
Vikas Hazrati recently posted an article on Agile Journal, defining his ideal characteristics of an Architect working in an Agile team, reflecting how the role of Architect has changed in light of Agile practices.
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Why Crunch Mode Doesn't Work
Evan Robinson recently posted an article on why the practice of 'crunch time' doesn't work. Despite a century of studies showing that long-term output is maximized near a five-day, 40-hour work week, projects still hit the crunch usually to the detriment of the team. InfoQ looks at why crunch time is still so prevalent in the software industry and, if we know it's bad, why do we still do it?.
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Successful Collaboration Doesn't Happen by Accident
Partnership Coach Michael Spayd tells us that both contractors and permanent employees can find themselves playing a "consultant" role, and should consider using consulting contracts or "designed partnerships" with their clients - not regarding the exchange of money, but to create a climate for stellar results for the client, while also communicating their own values and preferences.
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Charming the Army: the Power of Delivery
Here is a story about Agile's use in a governmental organisation: at the 2006 APLN Leadership Summit Mark Salamango and John Cunningham looked at the problems and opportunities of introducing Agile in Army environments. True Agile practices cannot be 'commanded' or 'directed’ but frequent delivery offers Agile leaders a "soft" kind of power that is, in fact, very effective.
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I'm Not Sure What You Heard is What I Thought I Said
Are family celebrations a challenge? You get together to catch up and swap stories, and invariably something gets "taken the wrong way." It's not restricted to families is it? So it's not surprising that the Satir Communication Model jumped the fence from family therapy to team building! J.B. Rainsberger uses an amusing Christmas-at-Walmart anecdote to illustrate its use.