5 Whys is a blog about technical leadership in the software world.

Oslo Lead Better Workshop - August 8-9 2011

This August, I will be running my two day workshop in Oslo, for new and experienced team leaders about elastic leadership of software teams - called "Lead Better".

You can register here.

Feel free to contact me directly with ANY questions about this course and others.


Why should you care about this course?

A good team leader is key to Agile success. Why?

Have you ever come across these situations?

  • You try to convince your team that a specific practice is a good idea, but no one really adopts it, and you don’t know what to do about it.
  • You are afraid of losing friendships just because you’ve become manager to the same people you’ve worked with as a team member up until now.
  • Your team doesn’t have time to do anything but putting out fires and you feel helpless about it.
  • You have a problematic team member and you feel like you’ve tried everything to solve this behavior and failed.
  • You are being expected to perform impossible feats with impossible deadlines, and can’t do anything to stop it.
  • You think that your team will never be able to be one of those “extreme programming” teams you keep writing about.
  • You wonder “if only I had better people in my team I’d…”

 


 

VIDEO:

I recently gave a talk on Team Leadership in the age of Agile:

Here's the video.


 

You are not alone in these thoughts. We’ve all been there. A lucky few of us had good mentors to teach us what to do in these situations, but most of us just try our best and hope for miracles. Keep our heads down and pray nothing bad happens until the next person comes along.

In this course you’ll learn the basic trade secrets for managers and coaches - how to lead teams to greatness, with a twist - this course is especially designed for software team leaders - and deals with specific people issues in this highly technical world.

Hopefully, by the end of this course you’ll feel not only empowered to change things for the better, but you’ll also be equipped with a set of tools and techniques to help you think through and overcome tough people issues and challenges during your time as a team leader.

 

Prerequisites :

One year’s experience developing software using any language

Course Outline

Day 1 – Elastic Leadership Principles

Skills being developed:

Day 2 – Influence and Team Growing

Skills being developed:

 

 

Video: Mistake #1 - Not Understanding Team Maturity

Video: Ten Mistakes Software Team Leaders Make