When we think about agile development we talk about the performance of the team and not measuring individual performance. If we measure individual performance then we drive behaviours which are counterproductive to our overall aims. For example, one of the best developers I have ever worked with would probably have been viewed as achieving very […]
Earlier this year I decided to undertake an experiment on punishment and blameworthiness. I set up an online survey and asked my Facebook friends and people on Twitter to fill it out. There were 5 scenarios. In each one someone called John did something wrong and people were asked to say how blameworthy John was […]
What can we tell by looking at someone? Can we guess what job they do? Could we gauge how good they are with people and how effective a leader they would make? Despite how much we believe that we make voting decisions or job offer decisions based on rational analysis the fact remains that we […]
What’s the first thing we do when a problem happens in the live system? Fix it of course. Then we set about finding out who’s to blame so that they can be suitably punished. Why is there this drive to punishment? What dies it achieve? One organisation I worked with used to have a high […]
We concentrate far too much on leadership qualities and how leaders achieve great results rather than concentrating on the followers – who are the actual ‘do’ers – and what enables them to deliver the best results. It’s like we have a cult around the figurehead and totally undervalue the team. We talk about self-management but […]
I love roller derby. For any of you who aren’t sure what it is here’s a quick summary. Given that there are only 10 players on the track at any one time (5 from each team) it may surprise you to learn that there are 11 referees. Why on earth would there need to be […]
I’ve always been a huge believer in the importance of respect. I believe that people deserve to be respected from the start, without the need to ‘earn’ it. This applies to everyone I meet, from the person who serves me my coffee in the morning through to the CEO of my organisation. I start from […]
Chimpanzees have three main strategies which they use to become alpha male; dominance, intelligence and forming political alliances. Dominance The majority of the time dominance is the chosen approach. The chimpanzee is bigger and stronger than the other male chimpanzees, or they have greater aggression and fighting skills. They therefore fight their way to the […]
When I was at TopConf Linz last week I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Bourguignon and listening to his talk which covered his Developer’s Journey project. The more I’ve been thinking about this project the more interesting I find it. He’s talking to people involved in software development from all over the world and finding out such […]
Louise Elliott (@IvanaTerrorBull) 