Stagehands get the stage ready between takes, they close curtains, cue fog machines, turn on lights – all that great stuff that no one sees happening but is infinitely critical to the success of a play. These people exist in your team and company, but they are harder to see when you are remote because now they are not walking past you to do your job or being “cued” in, they are simply doing it,…

When asked about the best methodology to follow, my answer is always the same – Common Sense. When constructing a software delivery process always do the following; Do activities that are worth doing. Do activities that provide value to yourself, your team, and your company. Ensure that anyone, at any time can know what is happening. Don’t put it onto the shoulders of one person, the team should share in it. The dilemma in agile…

You can be the coach, the mentor, the manager, the leader, the guide – you can do it all. But the bigger your team gets, the bigger the need to fight that person that will help with that vision and help you be all those myriad of roles to your team. The best teams are not led by one person, they are led by a team, working together, moving in the same direction, focused on…

If you don’t know, now is the time to ask. This isn’t about team growth and development, this is about needs. What does your team NEED? Replacing aging hardware? Fixing the delivery process? Improving relations with the support team? Additional time to learn the domain and context? Growth is one thing, growth is important, but there are needs that exist, below the surface of growth, and if the needs are not attended to, growth will…