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Onboarding software development teams to a new project can be tough. To have a smooth project initiation or transition, a tried and true onboarding process needs to be in place. Here are the three most important things you can do to get developers off to a great start and help them be a successful and valuable resource to the project and organization.

The design thinking approach has gained popularity across all areas of business as an innovative problem-solving strategy. It brings cross-functional teams together to break out of their natural day-to-day patterns and unpack business challenges with a customer-centric mindset. The ability to work and think differently to flesh out early-stage solutions in a short timeframe has given design thinking its positive reputation. It's useful for innovation, strategy development, process improvement, and more.

Depending on the goals and context, design thinking can take many forms. For example, you can add small exercises to weekly meetings, conduct 1-day workshops, or run full 5-day design sprints. In this article, we walk through how to run a 1-day design thinking workshop to create strategic solutions and solve problems that might be holding you – or your customers – back.

In a corporate environment, a leader’s main task is to keep their team running efficiently and productively. However, in the startup world, a leader needs to jump in and help out at every level. It was this kind of environment and mindset that best informed the leadership style of our guest today, David Hoag.

David is the Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for OCC, the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization. His time working at a startup taught him lessons that he’s carried over to his teams throughout the years. David talks to Patrick and Shelli about why it’s so important to look beyond immediate problems, why egos keep business stuck, and why it’s better for managers to lead through inquiry and questions as opposed to dictates and direction.

Tune in for a masterclass in effective leadership.

We’ve all seen charts of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). They often have a stage with a name such as “operate” or “maintain” that the development team will briefly mention in their enthusiasm to move on to the next stage: building new features. But the operational phase of the software development lifecycle is, in many ways, the most important; it’s where the rubber meets the road.

By making operability a priority for your software, you’re investing in a maintainable present and the data to build the future. Here are four steps effective software development teams take to ensure they get the operational phase right.

Many of us have experienced long-standing issues with a particular product component (ugh! that one checkout cart feature) or the product as a whole. If the product is customer-facing, this can have serious ramifications for your customers, company reputation, and profit margins. If the product is internal facing, it can impact workflows and employee efficiency.