Leading vs. Managing in a Scrum Environment
Transforming a traditional work environment to SCRUM is not an easy task. There are a lot of perils, a lot of ego and a lot of misunderstandings. Overall this article reflects what I always tell people: To balance out responsibilities and powers and trust people to do their best, not to try and tell them what and how to do. Worth reading!
Great Perspectives on Tech IPOs
Apple's product development process
It gives me a certain ambivalent feeling whenever anybody talks about how Apple does things, what is the key to their success. Most of the time they take the path seldom taken. It’s hard to judge whether or not it would work for you or just an abomination because, well because the path they take is so radically different.
But in this case I think there are certain lessons we can take home from the Product Process and apply it to our businesses. Here are my 4 takeaways:
- They actually USE their products (and prototypes) before they say it’s ready for prime-time. and pull it back if they feel bad about the experience even a tiny bit.
- They empower their employees to meet the responsibilities and goals set forth.
- They define the roles, responsibilities and powers at one’s command and not just vaguely and informally talk about it in the loo or expect their colleagues to find out “the rules of the game”.
- Trust is inherent, failure is definitive.
How To Get People To Do What You Want
Until I was only the “managed” side of things I saw things very differently. When I landed on the “managing” side, I quickly started to realize it is much harder than you think. Here are great tips I learned the hard way but shared by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.
InSync: A tool to Dropbox-ify your GDocs account
Are you working with Googe Docs? Have a lot of shared document? Or maybe you just want to (or have to) store your documents in GDocs? Try InSync!
This nifty tool basically synchronises your GDocs to your hard drive, just like Dropbox does. Go grab it!
Outsourcing is tricky; five tips to ease the pain
If you ever worked in an outsource environment (either as outsourcer or outsourcee), you know how difficult it is and even considered giving up doing it ever again. Starters think this is as easy as working in an office setting face to face. But soon the problems they never even expect, like misunderstandings, less trust, sometimes cultural and language barrier, start creeping in.
So here are five tips which I found very true and useful during my days as outsourcer and outsourcee.
VC money you're after? Read this then!
This article on TechCrunch explain some basics nicely in the world of VC money. Although this is not a how-to, gives a glimpse into the setting from the entrepreneur’s perspective.
Easy user testing done cheap
At one point you need to test how people really getting along on your web property or service, even if you’re a genius in user experience design. This is where YouEye comes handy, letting you connect with willing testers who - with the tools from YouEye - can give you surprising results.
A/B testing done smart and easy
I just started using this, but so far, no problem with it and it was a breeze to set it up. Just a JS file added to the landing pages you want to A/B test and you are ready to create the variations!
Real-time web analytics
This tool looks good for simple, real time analytics (for most of us, it’s enough).
Facing the global crysis - The next 10 years will be very unlike the last 10 years
Project confidence; It's not that you can't learn that
Often to achieve something you need to go out and convince people that what you want is what they want. One of the must have tool in everybody’s belt should be confident and calm behavior. This great article helps you learn how to act like that, event if you’re not James Bond.
SCRUM? Kanban? You don't get it.
Recently there a “revolution” led by people who barely understand what they are against nor do they know what exactly they are advocating for in software development. Here’s an article I found collecting a lot of good thoughts on what’s what.
Those who live in the US, please consider joining this if you love services like @YouTube and @Ustream. http://t.co/lgLupjIS #StopSOPA
