Software Project Leadership

If you have been following along the current best practices you know that the answer is not … “multitask.”  But is that advice even possible to follow?

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This is all about empathic listening … listening to understand … not just waiting for the other guy to finish so that you can say what is on your mind

Would it be outrageous for me to suggest that the primary function of leadership is to teach?  Because the primary function of teaching is to lead …

You can’t turn around without stubbing your toe on win/win solutions … everybody talks that talk.  

We hear about win/win quite a bit.  It is a buzzword mercilessly deployed by salespeople who at least pay it lip service.  Reality may not be so kind, though.

Have you ever worked in - or with - an organization that really has taken the Quality message to heart?

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Jon is looking for a software solution for a specific problem - business model, actually.  Seems he’s outgrown his spreadsheet.

Jon “… suppl[ies] furniture to clients on an 'as and when' basis - i.e. we don't hold stock but order individual pieces for each client …” so he needs a solution that will “keep track on deliveries arriving to our office for purchases we've made on clients behalf.”

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is organized into two sections - Private Victory and Public Victory.  “Paradigms of Interdependence” is the bridge between them.

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Psychologists will tell you that what you aim at determines what you see rather than what you see determines what you aim at … see the difference?  I guess you would need to aim at the difference to see it.

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So, I had a question from Tony V: “You gave three problems that non-technical technology project leaders have to figure out.  I am a non-technical project lead on a software project … what do I need to know about these things?“

You might be wondering … errr … where else would you put first things?  I guess you’d be surprised where people put them … my Mom always said “a place for everything and everything in its place” … she’d want first things … right, you know, there … first.

https://fs.blog/great-talks/common-denominator-success-albert-gray/

Management is management, right?  I recently polled a population of project managers asking the musical question - how much (or little) domain knowledge is needed to be an effective project manager?

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I keep my finger on the pulse of various groups online looking for people to help.  Sometimes you find people for whom the best advice is that you gotta “know when to run!”

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One of the key concepts in stoicism is that of “memento mori” Latin for “remember you will die.”  I guess that works for everybody but Keith Richards …

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https://www.selfauthoring.com/

What do you think is the least secure part of your computer system? 
If you answered “the wetware,” you win a prize.  Wetware is people, of course

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If you build it they will … err … buy it, right?  I mean … the engineering speaks for itself, right? Actually, no.  But isn’t persuasion just marketing … or sales?  Well, broadly speaking, yes.  In the sense that you have to sell your ideas.

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“Dr. Will, we are preparing to migrate from the server version of Atlassian tools to the Atlassian Cloud … what advice do you have as we get under way?"

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https://www.amazon.com/What-You-Dont-Know-Successfully/dp/B0BKJL9N

As promised, this is the first habit of the 8 habits of highly effective people applied to software development teams.  Reminder: instead of crafting 7 (or 8 ) habits out of whole cloth for software teams, we are applying Stephen Covey’s habits and seeing where that takes us

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Got a question from Chris W of Sioux City (Wait!  Isn’t that where the Litigation Hall of Fame is?) … he is having some customer challenges … this may belong in the Q&A playlist, but it is germane to software projects, so here we are …

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It is usually after the fact - after you have traversed new terrain.  Done something you’ve never done before.  You look back – figuratively, maybe literally – and wonder at what just happened

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