Development

As the manager of development it is essential for me to keep detailed records of the projects that my team is working on, set specific weekly priorities, based on how the team is progressing and communicate this to executive management. I want to keep a creative work environment for the engineers and developers but I also want to keep them from everyday distractions. There are so many changes going on in our industry and the technology seems to change daily. I encourage team members to attend relevant conferences to bring new knowledge and ideas to the company. I remember when we first started using AccomplishTS we had sent one of our developers to a technology conference in Mexico.

All the other team members were pretty jealous and figured it was more of a vacation than something productive. Jeff, the developer, was in a seminar and the speaker was discussing a new methodology to improve productivity. Jeff was amazed at the concept and immediately wrote in the department blog what he had learned and what the team thought of the concept. I decided to post the idea on the AccomplishTS message board where we keep “Big” ideas. I figured if there was any chance the idea had issues, the technical team would rip it to shreds. When I checked the message board late the next morning, I was surprised. Everyone loved the idea, including Steve our supervisor, from his Hong Kong hotel room. There was also a comment from Karen saying her load was about to lighten up so she could take on a new project.

I took a closer look at Karen’s projects in AccomplishTS. Green – check. Green – check. Wow, this project is even expected to complete a day early! Okay, Karen wasn’t just being eager. So I created a new AccomplishTS project and made Karen the lead, knowing she’d add the other members as she brought the team together. I even added a couple design ideas to the work area wiki to get the project in motion.