Short-form insights you can read in under 5 minutes.
Being part of a high performing team permanently changed my expectations of myself, co-workers, my workplace. It taught me that both the how and why of project success and business results can be making life better for people.
Hi - if anyone is at the business agility conference and wants to chat. I’m here. I think I’m the only one wearing a mask 😷 (except when I’m sipping coffee)
It should be obvious that all the wealth that transfers to software professionals is correlated to our products creating real consequences for society and the planet. It’s also clear we are not evolving as fast as our output to own up to that fact.
Even HBR is publishing articles on Agile practice and psychological safety. That’s good I, I think. It will help a small but meaningful piece of the industry improve, even if a much larger portion will talk about it and not make any movement towards it https://buff.ly/3s44h9N
If you think you feel more anxiety or struggle more than others, don’t assume you are inferior. Find a job where it’s okay to ask for help. Know that your dedication to face adversity will help you learn more, analyze problems more deeply, and produce higher quality.
I appreciate what a privilege it is to have choices in what we do and who we work with. But to the degree we can, it’s also a responsibility to foster better conditions and outcomes for the people with and around us.
In work or school, punishing a team for mistakes without granting them the authority to self-organize and make their own commitments is an abuse. If the team succeeds, it is in spite of their leaders who will likely take credit for it.
A healthy profit margin is important. It’s not just a convenient excuse. That doesn’t, however, absolve a company and its people of accountability for their actions. We are trying to acknowledge both truths and obtain the benefits of both without sacrificing one for the other.
TechEquity Collaborative’s Contract Worker Disparity Project describes the pitfalls of a dual management structure. This is, in part, why we are shifting away from augmenting teams to delivering software in Stride teams and specific org change outcomes. https://buff.ly/3I0mFpO
If you and your organization treat people with respect, value psychological safety and learning, appreciate the difference between team work and a bunch of people handing work off to each other. Keep it up please!
There’s logical consistency in business leadership accountability and fostering cross functional, self-organizing teams. My accountability is to ensure our teams’ sustained creativity and effectiveness while personally embodying our shared values.
That entails providing direction (not instruction), information transparency, psychological safety, requisite diversity, learning and development support, access to the customer, autonomy to arrive at their own shared goals, and my earning and maintaining trust by listening and removing obstacles.
We exist in a world of ethical consequences not the virtue of our intentions. We are not heroes and villains. We are flawed people who are capable of taking accountability for the harm and good we foster directly and indirectly through our actions.