Tech Leadership Weekly, Issue 8

A weekly dose of management, process, and leadership.

Camille Fournier
Ask the CTO: Achieving friction-free status updates

Getting updates on the teams progress without disrupting the team can be challenging. A great first step is the team’s project management software. Understanding the urgency of the ask is also important. Providing a high level overview and following up with more details later may suffice. Look for natural breaks; lunch, coffee, etc. for the opportunity to ask questions without disrupting someone’s focus.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Julie Zhuo
Unintuitive Things I’ve Learned about Management (Part 2)

The lack of a clearly defined goal will really slow a team down. As a manager, focusing on the ‘why’ allows for focus and frees you from micro-managing. It gives your team the context needed as they craft their solution.

Within a team, it’s also important to be aware of the impact of conflict and individuals unable to contribute at a required level. Supporting and growing your people is a primary objective. You also need to know when to move someone to another team if it’s just not working.

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Kevin Ho
Pivotal Experience

Design and development teams really can work together. Collaboration between teams will result in a better product. Tightly integrating design into an agile sprint can help the team focus on key features. Pairing designers and developers for short periods (1–2 hours) at key points can streamline design reviews and maximize efficiencies in visual build-out. Collaboration is good!

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This content originally appeared in the Tech Leadership Weekly Newsletter. Signup for a weekly dose of management, process, and leadership delivered to your inbox every Wednesday at Tech Leadership Weekly.

Originally published at Ramblings on Software and Life.