In the past, we’ve shared our secret sauce for strong software teams, and those principles apply to teams of all sizes. However, when your development team is small (we’re talking 1-15 team members), there are a few specific best practices to be successful.
In October 2020, Mark Adams was an attendee for the virtual ComSpark event, featuring 90+ CIO level speakers. He had an agenda to explore, “How has the move to more remote employees affected culture?” He left wondering if leaders were talking about culture or just team building social events.
In the last two weeks, I have been reminded repeatedly about Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And, coincidentally, I’ve caught myself juggling a lot of different personal and business tasks, feeling overwhelmed, and getting a bit lost on the best way to prioritize and organize things. With all of the Covey reminders going on in my life, I realized that my sense of crisis is exactly what Habit #3 – Put First Things First — is designed to help.
As a software leader, we know you’re focused on three main things: time to market, quality, and productivity. And, after being in business for over two decades, we thought it was time to share some of the secret sauce that leads software teams to be successful in these areas. Enter, Lighthouse’s 5 Core Software Principles: [...]
Whether you’re new to your organization and want to understand what’s going on, or you’ve been there a while and something just doesn’t seem right, an all-encompassing assessment of your software team and processes may be the best next step. Software is an enormous investment in your organization. It likely holds a significant role in the value you provide for your customers, so why wouldn’t you ensure you’re getting good value for your investment?
As a leader of our business team or technology team, does the end result justify the means? I often meet with business leaders who are focused on outcomes and many tolerate their flawed process because they are “good enough”. By what standard? How good is good enough?
I know that many of you read my regular blogs to learn a few tips on how I believe we should lead our teams and our lives so that we are more fulfilled. But lately, I’ve been struggling a bit and am hoping you might be willing to share some advice.
Make no mistake: if you require customizations to a software product, you need to treat those customizations as full custom code. This means the project needs managed, scheduled, resourced, and tested as such.
I know we are all trying to get to some sense of normalcy, but between COVID-19 impacting our income and our lives, and the continued senseless murders and racism toward our Black friends and family, it is no wonder that most of us are still feeling anxious and overwhelmed. I know that I am! As leaders, I feel that it’s paramount that we understand how we and our employees, team members, families, and friends are coping and adjusting. I thought I would share with you my journey thus far as I work toward resilience in the hopes that maybe my experiences will help you, too.
As our world changed dramatically over the last few months, the eCommerce space skyrocketed. We thought it might be helpful to share common challenges we’ve seen so you can take proactive steps to mitigate them.
