Microsoft launched a cool new tool – Microsoft Live Writer. This tool enables the users to blog offline – users can compose the blogs offline and upload them whenever they are online. The best part is that this tool integrates well with other blogging services like Blogger and WordPress, apart from its native support to MSN […]
India is celebrating 60th Independence Day on 15th August, 2006 and I am thinking about Mahatma Gandhi – a man who played a pivotal role in India’s non-violent independence movement and is rightly called “Father of the nation”. A close watch on Gandhi’s life reveals that he was a master manager and a great motivator. […]
One of my favorite stickyminds columnists Esther Derby writes about approaching a conflict in style. Some very useful insights here. Over at Clarrus Compedium we have good posts on “Comfortable Communication” in “People tips” section. Worth having a look. Esther Derby, on her weblog, writes about conducting better retrospectives in her post titled “Instead of […]
There is always an internal conflict between what our gut feeling tell us and what our reasoning reveals. Normally, people choose to follow their reasoning, because its logical and probably supported by others around. I called up one of my team members and informed him that in he could have added a few more details […]
The work of a software tester on software projects is much like diagnosis doctors do. There is no scope for ambiguity when a doctor diagnoses. Before a doctor reveals his diagnosis, a lot of symptom analysis and mind work goes into it. A doctor has to be very precise in reporting the problems as he diagnoses. […]
“When in doubt, throw it out” is what Peter Clarke says on Stickyminds.com whose company has embarked on a “lean office” initiative. Peter stresses on workplace cleanup by cleaning up junk periodically. Sure, we can be more effective if the physical desk and desktop are cleaner. Things become easy to access leading to greater efficiency. […]
There has been an ongoing debate around on whether a software project manager should be technical. I have worked with project managers who are technical (a part of them is still a developer) and project managers who are non-technical (people who know how to get things done, and not exactly how to do it). However, […]
I am revisiting the topic of project communication again. Earlier, I wrote a post on “Quality of Project Communication” where I also summarized the aspects of effective communication. In software projects, teams spend over 50% of time in communication – communication on project start up, scope, requirements, design, development standards, issues, clarifications, reviews and so on. […]