Because empirical evidence trumps speculation. Every. Single. Time. (Elisabeth Hendrickson's thoughts on Agile, Testing, and Agile Testing.)
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Deprecation Notice

Greetings! And happy New Year! One of my goals for 2022 is to get more of the content that’s in my head out into places where people can read it or watch it. As I considered how I wanted to achieve that goal, I realized that this blog no longer serves my needs. So this is a deprecation notice: sometime in the next few months, I will be taking...

Mon Jan 3, 2022 01:57
Writing an Effective Request

You press “New” in your email editor and are faced with an empty message. You are drafting a request. Maybe you are asking a colleague to pick up a task. Maybe you’re petitioning your leadership to change a policy. Or perhaps you need something more personal, like a favor from a family member or help from a neighbor. Whatever it is that you...

Thu Jul 23, 2020 23:11
Delegation is Overrated

We were just coming back from lunch, taking our seats in the circle once again. The leadership seminar that we were all attending was about to resume. As we assembled, we were chatting among ourselves (as you do). The topic of delegation came up. “Delegation is overrated,” I said, shaking my head. The faces around me registered a mix of...

Tue Jun 23, 2020 01:54
On Sponsorship

Over on Twitter, Dare Obasanjo made an excellent point about the difference between mentoring and sponsorship: One thing I see tech companies get wrong is that they think POC need mentors when what they actually need is sponsorship. A mentor is a coach whereas a sponsor advocates for their protégés to get them bigger projects & promotions....

Tue Jun 9, 2020 22:33
When a Team Does Not Want to Do the Work that Needs to Be Done

Continuing on the theme of motivation… Sometimes the work that most needs to be done is not the work a team wants to do. Let’s eavesdrop on a conversation between two leaders in an organization that ships enterprise software for an example of one such situation: “Have you seen the number of support cases coming in for release <x.y.z>?”...

Tue Feb 18, 2020 20:07
Momentum > Urgency

Let’s talk about motivation. More specifically let’s talk about what leadership can do to help motivate a team. Once upon a time, a director of product management and I were butting heads. Let’s call him J (not his real name, or even his real initial). J was unhappy with the pace at which the developers were delivering. His usual approach...

Tue Feb 18, 2020 01:11

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