Leadership

Everything just mentioned regarding business as a cooperative game applies directly to leadership and project management in software development or another business, in a management-oriented organization or a self-organized group. Consider the following:

• Notice that the role of the leader or manager is amply described in the following list.

  • Get executive nourishment (both money and decisions).

  • Develop talent and skills.

  • Integrate results frequently.

  • Reflectively incorporate feedback on both the product and the process.

  • Build amicability and personal safety.

  • Monitor communication for frequency and quality.

  • Arrange for adequate time to focus on the work.

  • Generate clarity in both direction and priorities.

After you strip all the paperwork and drudge out of the leader or manager's assignment, these items remain. They become the heart of the leader or manager's work.

• Learn the language of lean manufacturingin particular, the notion of a pull system and the penalties of queues of work in progress. Learn to think of development as an assembly line of decisions, and visualize the dependencies between the individual people to create meaningful strategies.

• Separate project management strategies from your organization's process policies to the greatest extent possible. Different situations call for different management strategies, and you don't want to be constrained to an obviously ineffective strategy just because someone unwittingly bundled development strategies into the corporate methodology standard.