Come Together
Conflict in a team setting is one of the natural hazards of the workplace. Unless you are on a project with no schedule pressure, and no technical challenges, and a single obvious way to get the job done, there will be some form of conflict (if you do happen to work on that sort of project, then you’re probably going to have to deal with the challenge of keeping yourself awake). Different perspectives of how to get the work done are healthy, but when we get into situations where it gets personal, trouble is brewing. Listening to how we express our frustrations with someone else on the team can be quite revealing. Read more
Norms and Rules
Filed under: Leadership, Process, Project management, Quality
I was chatting with someone the other day about my upcoming trip to Germany (I’m actually writing this one in the departure lounge). He was over there during the summer, and as a way of helping me ensure I had a good time, he noted “just remember, there are social norms over there, but there are no social rules”. Makes me ponder the relationship between the two. Read more
Blurring the Boundaries
We have been running our own small business for more than 7 years now, and from most accounts, everything is running quite smoothly. While the pipeline has thinned a little as training budgets are slashed, there are indications that even this is turning around. Receivables have been very good, something that I would attribute to personally knowing who cuts the cheque in most places (the biggest challenges have come from the biggest vendors, where I am an anonymous ‘little guy’ with no apparent clout, but I have my ways to get things done there as well…). There remains one area that I struggle with – the traditional boundaries of the workplace. Read more
Ethical Dilemmas
There have been a couple of times in my career where I have encountered people that are not willing to take on a position because they perceived a collision with their own value system. Indeed, there have been times when I have stepped away from an otherwise lucrative gig because it involved something that didn’t quite sit right with me. It is worthwhile to sit down periodically and visit our boundaries, to understand what we will and won’t do, to explore what ethics means to each of us. For me, this is the time for some of that reflection. Read more
Cultural Vital Signs
Once in a while, I get the opportunity to work with a great team, in a company that ‘gets it’. Read more
Curiosity
One of the things that I have found to be very powerful in bringing teams together, while at the same time severely lacking in most teams, is a sense of curiosity. Read more
Descent into Conflict
I facilitated an intense 2-day offsite for a group recently. High expectations for lots of learning, lots of communication and lots of progress. As the group had not done many of these in the past, part of the session was intended to allow each other to learn about the diverse groups represented. Read more
You Are What You Eat
Even without going to the dietary extremes taken on in the documentary Super Size Me, we can certainly tell when we’ve had too much to eat, when we are hungry, or when we have eaten something that doesn’t agree with us. Despite my acknowledged cravings for sweets, I know that I’m not going to be happy after the fact if I indulge in something that’s not good for me. It’s not too different in software development, where the adage of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ is an unfortunate fact of life that few of us heed. Read more
The Audit Game
The first question I ask people in an organization that is ISO certified or has achieved a higher CMM rating is “what happens in this place a week before the auditor comes to town?” The response, either verbal or visually (such as nervous twitches or shifting around in their chair), tells me more than hours of additional queries ever could. Read more
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