InfoQ Homepage Teamwork Content on InfoQ
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Atlassian Opens up Team Health Monitors and Team Playbook Blueprints
After introducing a tool-agnostic version of its Team Health Monitors at Summit 2016, Atlassian now also bundles Team Playbook blueprints with the recently released Confluence Server 6.1. A Health Monitor workshop is a team self-assessment aiming to identify pain points and formulate a plan to address weak spots by running low-ceremony "plays" that "can help improve a team's overall health".
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Michael Nir on Conduct Objectives for High Team Performance
Michael Nir will give a talk at the upcoming Agile Games conference titled "Bring the Scrum Master a Glass of Water: Conduct Objectives for High Performance Team". InfoQ spoke to Nir about the goal of Conduct Objectives, the way to measure behavior, the common problem with the appreciation of personalities, how to use a Team Charter, and the link with Core Protocols.
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Open Office Layouts Bad for Productivity and Memory
A recent BBC article revived the discussion about the "best" office layout for productive knowledge work - how spaces impact culture, productivity and collaboration.
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Cultivating Attention and Awareness in Teams
Technology makes it easier to collaborate, but also distracts us and can have negative consequences on the quality and content of our personal interactions. The mere presence of a cell phone can pull you away from a task and reduce your focus. An interview with Jeffery Hackert on cultivating attention, awareness and empathy when working in teams, and giving and receiving uninterrupted attention.
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Experimenting with Peer Feedback in Tech Teams
Feedback can be used to build trust in teams and help individuals improve their skills and grow in their craft. Emily Page and Doug Talbot shared their experiences from experimenting with peer feedback at Ocado Technology at Spark the Change London 2016. An interview with Emily Page, Organizational Catalyst at Ocado Technology.
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What José Mourinho Can Teach Us about Team Building
Alan O’Callaghan gave a presentation at the Scrum Gathering Portugal 2016 on what José Mourinho can teach us about team building. Starting with the similarities between Football and Scrum, the talk addresses the less understood characteristic that affects Scrum’s effectiveness, that is, according to the speaker, the building of self-organising teams.
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How to Deal with Cognitive Biases That Hinder Collaboration
People are hardwired to instantly decide who we trust, but also to work collaboratively in small groups. Cognitive biases can get in the way of collaboration, but when you understand how these biases work and what agile practices can do to help, you are more likely to build better interpersonal relationships and create successful products.
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Google and the Perfect Team
Google researchers studied teams and what traits help with their efficiency. Named Project Aristotle, the study provides insight into what helps teams succeed, such as psychological safety, structure, and a sense of purpose.
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Continuous Improvement Beyond Retrospectives
If you want continuous improvement you can start with retrospectives, but you must go far beyond that with change management, culture change, and innovation. The most important thing in order to make change happen in organizations is creating new habits and changing your culture.
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Researcher Recognized for Advances in Team Performance Techniques
Eduardo Salas is recognized by the APA for his 30 years of research on team work. His implementation of team training includes defining team structure, identifying specific communication needs, clarifying roles and leadership skills, and practicing with scenarios. This technique has been used across many fields of work, and is part of the program as NASA prepares to send a team to Mars.
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Agile in Dispersed or Distributed Teams
Cross-cultural team building enables collaboration and teamwork in dispersed or distributed agile teams. You need to invest to get the best out of a dispersed team. An exploration about what is needed to make agile work with dispersed or distributed teams.
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Agile 2016: Persona Based Teams - The Ultimate Focus
At the Agile 2016 conference Andy Hircock, Mike Lowery, and Rob Vandenburg, discussed how they transitioned to persona-based teams, instead of feature or component based, and how they used this to help teams keep focused on their customers despite significant growth.
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Scaling Teams to Grow Effective Organizations
When organizations are growing fast it can be a challenge to keep them sane and to achieve what you actually want to achieve by hiring more people: getting more done. Alexander Grosse talked about how you scale teams to build an effective organization at Spark the Change London 2016. He explored the five domains of scaling teams: Hiring, People Management, Organization, Culture, and Communication.
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Helping Great Teams Form Using the Core Protocols
The Core Protocols are a set of ideas identified by Jim and Michelle McCarthy. Richard Kasperowski will open the second day of the Agile Games Conference with an explanation of how to use these protocols to help a team transform to greatness. He spoke to InfoQ about how this happens and how they relate to other team formation models.
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Applying Feedback Techniques
Dan North talked about models and techniques for giving and receiving feedback and how to apply them effectively at the QCon London 2016 conference.