Agile
Given my role as an Agile subject matter expert at Lirio, reading this book is part of my self-guided professional development. Value is everyone’s responsibility — not just the business, not just the product owner, not just the delivery teams, not just IT.
Business
Cultural Innovation (via Harvard Business Review)
Innovation isn’t just about building “better mousetraps” by increasing the value of existing products. Instead, change the understanding of what’s considered valuable. This article explains how the Ford Explorer was so successful and how Blue Buffalo dog food excelled in a market dominated by giants such as Mars, Purina, and Proctor and Gamble.
Career
How to Tell If a Prospective Employer Shares Your Values (via Harvard Business Review)
List three to five values you’re looking for in a company and use behavioral interview questions to ask for examples of how the company lives those values.
Communication
Feel-Good Messaging Won’t Always Motivate Your Employees (via Harvard Business Review)
Some people find the pro-social messaging hollow (e.g., reducing idling to save the plant) and resonate more with practical messaging (e.g., reduce idling to save the company money on fuel).
Leaderhip
Our book club covered the afterword chapter from Radical Candor, with good discussions about intent, giving/receiving criticism, and listening to understand.
To Foster Innovation, Cultivate a Culture of Intellectual Bravery (via Harvard Business Review)
“If you want your team to innovate, you need to create a culture of intellectual bravery, in which team members are willing to disagree, dissent, or challenge the status quo even when it requires they risk being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished. As a leader, make this possible by rewarding (or punishing) vulnerability and risk-taking. The author suggests seven ways you can set the right tone on your team and encourage psychological safety.”
How to debug distributed teamwork, as suggested by new research (via Software Lead Weekly)
Atlassian did some research into their own environment to see what variables influenced distributed work. I’m not sure how much of this is influenced by WFH during a pandemic, though. Many of these points seemed relevant to my current role, even when I’m in the office because the majority of my team is remote.
- Distributed work could lead to an innovation drought
- It’s hard for people to know you’re doing great work when it seems so invisible
- Working from home brings an unexpected bonus for women
- Distributed work brings latent inequalities to the surface
- Everyone is experiencing working from home differently, based on three basic factors — household complexity, role complexity, network complexity
Personal Development
You Need a Personal Highlight Reel (via Harvard Business Review)
I do something similar to this with my “year in review” blog posts. They take effort to write, but I’m always energized by reflecting on how much I’ve accomplished. This article offers something similar, but with a different focus: Give and ask for gratitude letters.