Stories by Adam Kolawa

More Tips on Guiding Group Culture

As I mentioned in my last column, establishing an effective, self-regulating group culture offers a tremendous benefit to managers: It allows you to effectively guide the group by managing the culture rather than micromanaging the team members.

Guiding Group Culture: An Often Overlooked Management Skill

Few group managers and technical leaders spend much time thinking about group culture, but establishing an effective, self-regulating group can be a giant step toward achieving the positive project outcomes that are critical for career advancement. Such a culture will relieve you from having to micromanage, which can detract resources from the higher-level management tasks that are essential in guiding the project to success. Micromanaging is also typically resisted by group members and ultimately ineffective.

Will Moving on Mean Moving Ahead?

One of the most difficult career decisions that an IT professional must make is determining when it's time to leave his current employer and start anew at another. Many people in the industry change companies fairly often because they believe that the best way to increase their value is to be well rounded, versatile and prepared to on take any project. I believe that the opposite is actually true: It is the most specialized developers who are most valuable.

Making the Move From Techie to Manager

It's not uncommon for standout techies to move up the ranks to IT management. Management assumes that techies are fully prepared to lead the group because they excelled in their previous position and know the ins and outs of the group and projects that they're being asked to manage.

How to work effectively with subcontractors and outsourcer organisations

The key to success in working with subcontractors and outsourcers is to treat them as extensions of your own organisation. This means that you must communicate as effectively with them as you do with your in-house teams, and ensure that they comply with the same policies you set for your own organisation. It doesn't matter if you are working with a large outsourcing operation offshore or a small subcontractor on the other side of town: If they're not following your standard policies and/or you misunderstand each other, the project is unlikely to succeed.