Have you ever wondered how many hours do you actually work at the office? Excluding lunch breaks and other breaks obviously. Have you ever calculated your productivity level during the day? How many hours are you able to work uninterrupted? If at all possible.

In my last post about teams I claimed there is no universal recipe for breeding a jelled team. A few days ago I came across a great book Peopleware, first published 20 years ago and then updated a few times. The authors explain what it takes for the team to jell. In order to illustrate the team creation process I would like to tell the story that was told in their book. This is a story of The Black Team-a legend in the computing industry who changed the fate of IBM forever.

The value of having jelled teams in the company or working in one is pretty obvious. Such teams are more productive and work more efficiently since they feel comfortable with each other. Can we use some magic trick to create a good team? Not really. For managers it’s usually easier to point out team killing factors rather than give a recipe for a healthy team.

Recently, I’ve come cross an HBR article “The Innovator’s DNA”, in which they explain what makes some people innovative and what sets them apart from the rest of us? They also tried to answer the question why some companies are innovative and some are not? Where do the best ideas come from? The article is based on the study carried out by the professors from  Harvard, Insead and BrighamYoung University.

After 6 years they identified 5 secrets of being innovative.The findings are optimistic. The researchers say it’s not an inherent feature but it’s a set of skills that can be learned. According to the article, creativity is close to 80 percent learned and acquired. This means there is hope for almost everybody!

We all know that only the “learning organizations” have a bright future ahead. Knowledge is the key predictor of success. So why aren’t we eager to share our knowledge? Why often people working for the same organization don’t cooperate?

Nowadays, with the development of IT industry companies give their employees the variety of tools to make their work more productive and efficient. But it requires a lot of time to adopt them and adapt to new working patterns. Often the managers first have to break down people’s resistance to change  and innovation.

The question is- are all these tools a help or a hindrance? Do they actually stimulate collaboration?

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The beginning of a new year is always a great time to start moving your career in a better direction. It’s pretty common that at that time many employees set Workplace and Career New Year’ s Resolutions.

This is also the time for looking back on what you achieved last year, what failures you faced and what lessons you learned. Based on that many of us start planning their career paths all over again.

But can you actually plan it? Does a strict career path limit your perspective? Or maybe it’s just pointless since we are unable to control external factors that affect us?

zacksays.com

It’s been estimated that almost 50% of newly hired employees fail in their jobs within the first 2 years and the first 3 months are the most crucial for their success. As I discussed in my previous post there are various reasons why newbies fail. Is it only dependent on their own behavior or attitude? Is it only down to the internal reasons? What about the external factors such as the impact of the company they start working for?

If you have just started a software developer’s career or changed a workplace these tips may comae in handy while establishing yourself in a new environment. It’s not easy to earn colleagues’ respect and reach the “core” of the company. Many fresh graduate developers fail at the very beginning for a variety of different reasons. I already presented a few tips on how to succeed in a new workplace in my previous post. Below you can read more tips that may help you survive in a new job.

Are you starting your developer’s career? You stand 50% chance of losing this job within the first two years, the study revealed. Surprisingly, many great and talented people fail. I can imagine that after so many years of studying you don’t feel like getting fired. More importantly, it’s becoming the place you start spending 1/3 of your life at. You try to make yourself comfortable here and make other people feel the same with you around. How to settle yourself smoothly into the job? How to win colleagues’ respect?

According to the study by Leadership IQ around 46% percent of newly-hired employees will fail within the first 2 years in the new job. By failure they mean terminations, leaving under pressure, receiving disciplinary action, or receiving very negative performance reviews. This rate is also nothing different among software developers. Why people who have the right skills to do the job fail? They were carefully screened and made their way into the company. Then they get quite successful at the very beginning and suddenly something changes. Is it their fault or the company’s? Based on our experiences below I’m presenting the possible explanations for their failure and the examples of fatal mistakes when starting a new job: