communications

Articles

Learning from Mistakes Positive Psychology and Learning from Mistakes

Mistakes happen. But team members can engage in very dysfunctional behavior after they have made mistakes—often because their organizations punish mistakes and cause damage trying to cover them up. Here’s what we learn from positive psychology about creating an environment where employees can be empowered to address their mistakes in an open, honest manner.
Leslie Sachs's picture Leslie Sachs
July 10, 2014
DevOps Collaboration Harnessing the Power of Collaboration for a DevOps-Driven Organization

From buzzwords to definitions, much has been discussed and debated about DevOps. Yet what it really means is solely up to the IT professionals running the show at thousands of organizations around the world. This article describes building a DevOps culture organically, with less reliance on automation tools and more focus on contextual collaboration, information federation, and visualization.
Cass Bishop's picture Cass Bishop
June 19, 2014
Digging into DevOps Digging Deeper into DevOps

The DevOps movement was started to address the communication challenges between development and operations teams, but instead of engaging in the continuous cycle of self-improvement, management often wants to mimic techniques used by other successful companies. W. Edward Deming showed decades ago that copying others is not effective. This article suggests better approaches to good communication.
Pini Reznik's picture Pini Reznik
June 12, 2014
Positive Psychology Can Help Your Organization How Positive Psychology Can Help Your Organization

Positive psychology is providing a new focus on effective ways to ensure that teams exhibit the right behaviors in a group or organizational setting. Closely related to many agile and lean concepts, these emerging practices are helping teams to improve communication, collaborate, and emerge as highly effective groups. Leslie Sachs explains what positive psychology is all about and how to start using these practices in your organization.
Leslie Sachs's picture Leslie Sachs
December 4, 2013
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Better Software Magazine Articles

Don’t Bury the Survivors: The Value of Clear Communication

Whether you’re discussing software defects with your test team, analyzing requirements with your BA, or programming in your favorite new language, communication is essential. Lanette Creamer has some tips to help you communicate clearly with any audience.
Lanette Creamer's picture Lanette Creamer
November 10, 2012
Let's Talk Agile

Agile development employs more oral communication, feedback, and interaction than traditional development. These communication tools can help ease the transition into the more interactive agile team relationship.
Ken Pugh's picture Ken Pugh
May 1, 2008
The Whorfian Hypothesis

Benjamin Whorf hypothesized that the language we speak constrains the thoughts we can have. Learn how a well-developed organizational vocabulary can help increase the quality of your products.
Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland
May 31, 2007
Is the Pope a Bachelor?—Why Examples are Most Important

We like to believe that the categories we assign to the world are real and the definitions we use draw clear boundaries, but how clear are they really? Brian Marick writes about the vital nature of examples, both in the realm of software development and in the larger picture of life.
Brian Marick
May 2, 2006
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Interviews

Software professional and Open Space facilitator Steven Doc List Listen to What You're Saying!: An Interview with Steven "Doc" List

Steven "Doc" List and Noel Wurst sit down for what starts as a standard interview about communication skills but quickly evolves into a fascinating conversation that reveals a lot about what we're saying—and what we should be saying. You may be surprised at just how much you have to learn.
Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst
July 2, 2013
Improving QA-Development Communication: An Interview with Amit Chopra

In this Sticky ToolLook interview, Microsoft senior program manager Amit Chopra takes a look at some of the common communication breakdowns between QA and development teams and offers suggestions for avoiding or repairing those situations.
Joey McAllister's picture Joey McAllister
November 9, 2011
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Conference Presentations

Creating Crucial Test Conversations

Many test leaders believe that development, business, and management don't understand, support, or properly value our contributions. You know what-these test leaders are probably right! So, why do they feel that way? Bob Galen believes it’s our inability and ineffectiveness in communicating-selling-ourselves, our abilities, our contributions, and our value to the organization. As testers, we believe that the work speaks for itself. Wrong! We must work harder to create the crucial conversations that communicate our value and impact. Bob shares specific techniques for holding context-based conversations, producing informative status reports, conducting attention-getting quality assessments, and delivering solid defect reports. Learn how to improve your communication skills so that key partners understand your role, value, and contributions.
Bob Galen, iContact
Conversations I Never Expected to Have as a Test Manager

There are times in a test manager's career when the work situation becomes surreal. If you've been in situations where you think you must be dreaming, sometimes it helps to look at things from the other person's perspective. As we mature in our jobs, we can examine these situations and see how to better answer the questions we have about unexpected communications. In this session we'll look at some typical conversations and discuss alternative ways to help everyone find the true reality, then better deal with the situation. From her years of experience as a consultant and her personal encounters, Johanna Rothman shares her insights and gets you involved in discovering what's really being said in these strange conversations.
Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group
STAREAST 2000: Confessions of a (Recovering) Coding Cowboy

The battle lines are drawn, it seems, between programmers and testers. Do you wonder what makes some programmers so opposed to process control? Why do programmers seem to resent testers? And, more importantly, what can we do to bridge the gap? Learn how to identify different types of developer personalities and development styles and deal with them to your advantage. Susan Joslyn explores ways to inspire quality (recovery) in coding cowboys while minimizing clashes. Discover your own twelve step program to recovery in your relationships with your developers!
Susan Joslyn, SJ+ Systems Associates, Inc.
Management of Outsourcing--How to Avoid Common Mistakes

One of the most challenging areas of software management is encountered in the first year after an outsourcing contract is signed. Carol Dekkers discusses the actions that can be taken by both implementation teams to ease the transition and to achieve outsourcing success. Learn of the common mistakes made involving personnel, measurement, and expectations, and obtain recommendations to increase the transition to a successful partnership.
Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies, Inc.
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