People Skills
So, you're a software developer, and you've mastered coding languages, algorithms, and all the tech stuff. That's awesome! But here's the deal: technical skills alone won't get you as far as you might think. If you can't…
Topics
communication
48 posts
The art of clear communication in teams and beyond.
Prisoner's Dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma illustrates the complexities of strategic decision-making, where individuals must choose between cooperation and betrayal, often revealing insights into human behavior and the consequences of self-…
What Kills Agility?
Why Agile, if you already do Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or Waterfall? How we manage an organization defines its quality. Excellent management is crucial to avoid the Waterfall trap if we aim to build an Agile environment. But …
Radical Candor
Radical Candor is a management philosophy developed by Kim Scott, a former Google leader. It's a crash course on how to be a great manager, focusing on being empathetic and results-oriented. The core idea is to create a …
Effective Pair Programming
Let's first establish what pair programming is: Two people working together on the same problem at the same time. It is not about one person showing off their skills in front of another, nor one person afraid of making m…
Great Engineering
Coding is not just another job. In the right environment, writing software can be really fun and, even more, it can be your personal hobby as well! So... you might be focused on coding, coding and more coding to level up…
Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing
Embarking on the path to high team performance involves understanding Tuckman's Model — a roadmap through the stages of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. In this blog post, we explore practical stra…
Crucial Conversations
Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want.
Unhealthy Working Environment
An unhealthy working environment can have various symptoms that negatively impact both the physical and mental well-being of employees.
It's Your Ship
It's Your Ship is a leadership book written by D. Michael Abrashoff, a former commander of the USS Benfold, a guided missile destroyer. The book focuses on Abrashoff's experiences and the leadership principles he applied…
How Do You Get Everyone on Board?
I was invited to the WeAreDevelopers World Congress to give a tech talk about my experience with Extreme Programming and the profound benefits of embracing change in your work and life.
Agile Project Management
Projects that followed a Waterfall methodology tended to exceed their expenses in the first initiative over time, while the product delivered was below standard and difficult to use. That situation originated that a grou…
Effective Remote Work
An effective remote work environment is about treating everyone as remote, with everyone in mind having the same level, equality, and information.
Introducing a New Tech Stack
To introduce a new tech stack for the entire team, it's important to bring "why?" and a strategy to make it happen among the team because it will affect everyone.
Great Leadership
As business scales, the leaders' primary focus must shift from customers to employees. Therefore, I would like to share what I consider critical points that any leader should address and focus on regularly.
Adapt or die
Told through the story of one bold company (People First IT), Adapt or Die takes readers through the unparalleled business system known as The Algorithm of Success that has the potential to inspire, ignite, and affect ch…
The infinite game
From the bestselling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, a bold framework for leadership in today's ever-changing world.
Interview About XP and Agile
My interview with devm.io regarding Agile and Extreme Programming. Agile is more about HOW you do certain things, rather than WHAT things you do.
Ignoring Scrum to Get More Agile?
People become slaves to systems that are supposed to help. Boring meetings are killing agile. Meetings require active participation from everyone. Otherwise, you might not be essential to that meeting, and rather use you…
Working Agile with Non-Agile Teams
Let's assume you already know what the agile manifesto is. Let's consider that you apply most of the extreme programming values, principles, and practices. How can you work with other teams that aren't agile?
Different Beliefs About Software Quality
What to do when working on "bad software" and you can't improve it because it is against the beliefs of your peers? Should you change the company?
Dare to lead
Leadership is not about titles, status and power over people. Leaders are people who hold themselves accountable for recognising the potential in people and ideas, and developing that potential. This is a book for everyo…
The Beauty of Leadership
Leadership is not a synonym for management, it has nothing to do with titles or personal attributes. So, what is it? How can we become leaders? And most importantly, why?
Understanding People
One of the most complicated challenges for everyone is avoiding misunderstandings and being aware that other people don't think the same way as you do.
The Great CEO Within
Learn how to efficiently scale your business from startup to corporation by implementing a system of accountability, effective problem-solving, and transparent feedback.
The Path to Seniority in Software
The seniority in our software industry is more polluted by marketing and politics than in reality. What can we do about it?
Bikeshedding
People within an organization typically give disproportionate weight to trivial issues.
Dunbar Number
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
The Power of Authority and Obedience
Milgram was interested in researching how far people would go in obeying an instruction if it involved harming another person, and how easily people could be influenced into committing atrocities. For example, Germans in…
Modern CTO
In Modern CTO, Joel Beasley provides readers with an in-depth road map on how to successfully navigate the unexplored and jagged transition between these two roles. Drawing from personal experience, Joel gives a refreshi…
Leaders Eat Last
A company's biggest strength doesn't lie in its products or services. It always lies in its people, and in their ability to cooperate closely and rally behind the organization, especially during a crisis.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
This book is a leadership fable about a tech company that is struggling to get more customers. The C level is not working as a team, and they have a hard time coming to any agreements which result in negative morale. Unt…
Start with Why
Start with Why asks (and answers) the questions: why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees …
Leadership is Language
In this book, the former submarine commander Captain L. David Marquet dives deep into one of the most investigated marine disasters, the sinking of the El Faro, and surfaces with new ideas on leadership and language.
Turn the Ship Around!
The book is about his leadership theories to how he implemented a fresh leadership model. Including the limitations of a hierarchical top-down model, why/how he failed to empower his team earlier in his career, and how t…
Responsibilities of a Tech Lead
The Trident Career Model by Patrick Kua has three tracks. Each track represents where people spend most of their time or energy.
Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager
A great compilation of all topics that are important for management: 1:1s, performance reviews, hiring and laying off, workplace politics, remote work, and others.
Conformity Experiments
To what extent do social forces alter people's opinions? Which aspect of the group influence is most important — the size of the majority, or the unanimity of opinion?
Peopleware
Software development is about people: when, how and where they can best work together. Not about programming languages or tools. Not about fast computers, networks or internet access.
The Art of Leadership
Leadership practices are small things done repetitively over time. Managers tell you where you are, leaders tell you where you're going.
97 Things Every Engineering Manager should know
As a manager your work is to create clarity, clarity, and more clarity.
Pull Requests vs Pair Programming
Let's talk about the benefits of Pull Requests and Pair Programming, and my thoughts on these after some years of experience with them.
Sharing Your Git Patches
Discover another way of sharing suggestions with your development team.
Never split the difference
From policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, to becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator to teaching negotiation at leading universities, Chris Voss has tested the techniques in 'Never Spl…
The Manager Path
Camille Fournier maps the career path from engineer to CTO, covering 1:1s, mentoring, team management, and the evolving responsibilities at each level of technical leadership.
Extreme Programming Explained
Extreme Programming (XP) is an agile software development framework that aims to produce higher quality software, and higher quality of life for the development team. XP is the most specific of the agile frameworks regar…
How to Improve Your Tech-Talk (or Any Other Presentation)
We have found ourselves attending a meeting that felt like we were wasting our time with a monologue that is either hard to follow or doesn't seem so interesting as it could. Let's fix this.
The Clean Coder
Robert C. Martin's guide to professional behavior in software development, covering time management, pressure handling, TDD practices, and what it truly means to be a software craftsman.