Management
The Sunk Cost Fallacy
The sunk cost fallacy is in action every time you: Sit through a long boring movie even if you decided after the first half an hour that is was terrible Finish a meal that tastes bad and after you’re already full Continue a bad relationship or friendship, purely because of the time and energy you’ve…
Read MoreHow to Delegate Effectively (Orders and Enrolment)
There are 2 ways that you can allocate work. You can give orders, or you can enrol people. Orders: This is most people’s default way of delegating work. To do it well, you speak to the person involved, give them sufficient context, and enough detail that they can get the job done to your specifications.…
Read MorePower BI – The Six Reports Every Consultancy Should Have
I’ve been at SSW, a medium sized custom software consultancy, for over 10 years, and in that time I’ve asked for a number of SQL Reporting Services reports to be made, but due to the difficulty in getting exactly what I needed out of the developers, I still had to make many decisions based on…
Read MoreSeven Tips to Being a Great Product Owner
Every software product in development has a Product Owner who is in charge of supplying the requirements, and it is often misunderstood how important this role is. You can have the best engine in your car (the development team), but if you steer in the wrong direction, you’re not going to get to your destination.…
Read MoreThe Five Things Every Scrum Master Should Do
The larger a Scrum team is, the more opportunity for wastage there is, and so the more difference a good Scrum Master makes. A team with a bad Scrum master can feel powerless, floundering, isolated, and overwhelmed whereas a team with a good Scrum Master generally feels well informed, connected, directed, powerful, and like they…
Read MoreThe Five Dysfunctions of a Team
There are five interrelated issues that undermine the performance of a team, and they can be viewed from 2 angles: The Negative Angle This is popular because as managers we’re often looking for what’s wrong so we can fix it: Absence of trust. If the members of the team do not trust each other, then…
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