Geoff Mazeroff

Agile

“Stories” Don’t Tell a Story: Good Sprint Planning Uses Milestones (via Software Lead Weekly)

• Don’t get too focused on the granular user stories; pick a milestone and work backward
• Epics (or whatever noun your project management tool uses for collections of stories) are not execution plans, but milestones

Business

What Your Future Employees Want Most (via HBR)

• Flexible options
• Better measures of productivity
• Team diversity

Why Start-ups Fail (via HBR)

• Good idea, bad bedfellows (outsourcing to the wrong people, investors not funding it well enough, founders with little industry expertise)
• False starts (use the MVP pattern, but being too hasty to build anything; I call this “don’t fail dumb”)
• False positives (early adopter needs =/= mainstream user needs)
• Speed traps (initial market is saturated by an early offering, then the cost to acquire new customers becomes too high)
• Help wanted (shortfalls in funding or senior management team that is seasoned)
• Cascading miracles (too many overly ambitious challenges that are “do or die”)

5 Models for the Post-Pandemic Workplace (via HBR)

1. As it was — same arrangement, but more hygienic
2. Clubhouse — employees visit to collaborate, but go home for focused work
3. Activity-based — no assigned desk, move around based on what they need to do
4. Hub and spoke — smaller satellite offices closer to where people live
5. Fully virtual — no expensive leases

5 Myths About Flexible Work (via HBR)

1. Loss of control — instead, set standards about what flexibility means and clearly communicate them
2. Loss of culture — define what culture means and how you’ll maintain that in a hybrid environment
3. Loss of collaboration — give people tools and let them commit to keeping schedules that work for them
4. Loss of contribution — communicate what’s expected (results oriented work environment)
5. Loss of connection — tools allow all sorts of ways to connect virtually

Communication

What It Takes to Run a Great Hybrid Meeting (via HBR)

• Make sure the audio is good for the physical space
• Leverage the features of your video conferencing software
• Consider video from the remote person’s perspective
• Make remote people feel just as important as in-person people
• Test the tech in advance
• Design meetings for all attendees
• Facilitate the meeting so that in-person people don’t dominate
• Have someone on-site that is an “avatar” for remote folks

Unusual tips to keep Slack from becoming a nightmare (via Software Lead Weekly)

• “…humans operating at the limit of their capabilities are less effective.”
• Rule 1: Answers to questions should take longer than the time to look it up yourself; “I’ll document the answer to this question, in exchange for you providing the answer to this question.”
• Rule 2: Notifications should go to one or two people; have a rotating person to field general questions, and disable @here/@everyone/@channel
• Rule 3: The more people in a room, the more structured the room should be; document elsewhere and post links in Slack, use threaded replies, avoid long threads, use emoji and formatting to make topics scannable

Leadership

5 Behavioral Biases That Trip Up Remote Managers (via HBR)

• Confirmation bias — seeking out information that confirms our beliefs and values; one solution: appoint a devil’s advocate
• Attribution bias — attributing behaviors to character traits instead of situational influences; one solution: slow down and consider why this behavior is occurring
• Groupthink — people want to fit in with the group and may not speak up; one solution: split people up into heterogenous groups
• In-group effect — it’s difficult to understand our group virtually; one solution: check in with people personally (not just work stuff)
• Peak-end effect — people judge something by how it was at its peak (most intense) and at the end; one solution: meet more frequently and record progress so it can be seen and evaluated over time

Self-development

Stop Being So Hard on Yourself (via HBR)

• Name your inner critic (cognitive diffusion — separate yourself from your thoughts)
• Avoid generalization (spotlight effect — we overestimate how much others pay attention to us)
• Flip the “what if” narrative (sensitive people are more attuned to attention, action-planning, decision-making, and internal experiences)
• Set a timer and a goal (give negative emotions a time box and then move on afterward)
• Expand your definition of success (i.e., be more flexible in your definition)