You’ve probably heard something along those lines. We all have. But we can probably also agree that team structure needs to change as a company adapts and scales — unless you’re a proponent of a completely flat organization, in which case I can’t help you. What worked for 2 people won’t work for 5, what worked for 5 won’t work for 15, and what worked for 15 won’t work for 50. But when’s the last time you heard someone say “I’m super excited about the structural changes happening at work”? So what’s going on — why are reorgs so dreaded?

Imagine a place where all can learn to lead in a way that enhances organizational agility, so that decision quality is increased and decision latency is decreased. So that freedom and accountability thrive around you. So that the vibrancy you long for in your work life can come into being. This can be your workplace. Pervasive Leadership sets the context in which this happens,

As software testers, it is very important to be able to understand your emotions. They can be a great heuristic which can guide your testing. But it is more than just that; understanding your emotions and the effect that they can have on others who you work with in your team is a key skill for all team members. One’s position within a team is often dictated by how well one can interact with others in the team. People who express extreme emotional reactions to events, particularly in cultures where this is not normal behaviour, risk becoming isolated and ineffective. This can be a particular problem for testers who are typically fewer in number, and frequently perceived to be the bearers of bad news. Paul’s behaviour above is not the best way for anyone to act.

Software testers like software developers might be generally more introverted than extroverted. However, with Agile software development approaches like Scrum, communication between team members and with external stakeholders become a critical for project success. In this extract from her book “Guide to Advanced Software Testing”, Anne Mette Hass presents some general ideas about the communication issues for software testing teams.

Why is it so hard to break bad news? Why is there a cult of people who do not want to give bad news about their projects to stakeholders? Why do we let our fears cloud our judgement? Things can seem bad when they don’t go as we planned and hoped, but in reality things ‘just are’. As Esther Derby] notes "The ability to ‘face the truth’ and take effective action rests on the ability to be in a mental state where our emotions and fears aren’t running us". How do we remove that fear and emotion, create an environment in which we are not afraid to break ‘bad news’, into ‘news’ that allows us to make informed decisions.

In this second and final part of our article on self-selecting teams, you will learn how to get your self-selection event off the ground. We will also provide tips on how to get the most out of it and keep the momentum going afterwards.

No one person can know everything and needs to rely on the talents of others to be successful in a role, on a project, or in the marketplace. With the increasing pace of change, trusting each other - and unleashing talent - is critical.

Using an Agile project management framework like Scrum does not avoid the problems of right-sizing the team. What do you do when you need to increase the numbers of people involved? When is the team too big? How to split an existing Scrum team? In this article, Cynthia Kahn provides some tips on how to assess and manage the growth of Scrum teams.

I often encounter mature Agile teams, well trained in Scrum, some of them doing Scrum of Scrums and having already participated in several releases. These teams' retrospectives frequently bring in opportunities for improvement in a number of areas connected to processes, techniques, and, occasionally, impediments at the organizational level. This is very good, but I wonder why personal issues are rarely discussed in retrospectives. This I have learned personally: Teams that do not discuss personal matters openly pay the price of missing considerable opportunities for improving an already good team performance.

The software industry has created two separate roles: The developer and the tester. Traditional software development put these two at odds. Now, agile practices are bringing them together again.