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Are Our Decisions in Agile Free of Cognitive Biases?

"I knew this release was bound to fail. We shouldn't have hurried." If you ever heard a Scrum Master mentioning this, he/she could be under the influence of a "hindsight bias." Another scenario is when an Agile team agrees blindly with a confident-sounding (and looking) Product Owner without empirical evidence, they may be subject to the "halo effect." Or, when a tester in good mood agrees to execute 40% higher test cases than their previous average, the tester may be experiencing "optimism bias."

I know, some of you could now be thinking: "That is what Agile is all about. We need to try out and experiment. It could be wrong, but learn lessons from it."  Agreed! But what about understanding the scientific reason for flawed decision-making, which if addressed appropriately, could minimize some of these errors? I am referring here to a psychological phenomenon called "cognitive Bias."

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The Right Way To Ask For Help at Work

Introduction

When we were small, we asked for help all the time. Dependent on our parents, friends, teachers, and siblings to help us navigate the complexities of life, asking for help seemed like the most natural thing to do. As a child, I don’t remember dealing with any painful emotion while asking for help, worrying about what it would do to my self-esteem or the damaging effect it can have on the image I have built for myself. I was simply happy to learn from everyone around me, knowing I could rely on people to give me useful advice when I needed one. Indeed, the best feeling in the world.

Yet, somewhere along the way, the meaning of help changed. I had caught on to the bug of independence and individualism. Asking for help became less about learning and more about my identity. It made me question my own abilities. Will it make me look weak or incompetent? Will others think less of me if they find me dependent? Will people question my intelligence and smartness? I would much rather struggle through a task and waste countless hours without accomplishing anything than approach someone. I was hungry for information but ready to stay foolish.  

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Addressing Concerns About Being a DevOps Engineer

In the experience of leading a DevOps team, some team members have the concern about being a DevOps engineer:

Concern #1: Is it better to be a developer because writing programs looks more competitive? However, we seem to be just doing the integration of various tools.

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5 Emotionally Intelligent Habits For Handling Frustration At Work


That sudden rush of anger when a coworker blames you, a feeling of disappointment when your idea is rejected, resentment towards an egocentric boss, and the stress of meeting other people's expectations can be a constant source of frustration at work.

Just like a rubber band you feel stretched to your limits, ready to break at any moment. One tiny push in the wrong direction can wreak havoc in your mind, break your world apart and distract you from being productive in your work.

Every single day there's so much to dislike about work. A boss who doesn't care, coworkers who are mean, clients who nitpick, a support team that doesn't care to respond, meetings that suck away into your time and energy, and emails and messages that live in a world of their own with no sense of time.

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5 Strategies to Stop Overthinking and Start Acting

I thought I was pretty good and smart at making decisions from routine tasks with a little cognitive load like what to eat for lunch, what dress to wear to the office, how to avoid traffic on the way to work to the more mentally demanding activities like putting together a hiring plan, defining org structure and thinking about the future strategy of my organization.

Yet, there were days when I was occupied with overthinking and being stuck in analysis paralysis without being productive. The moments when unwanted thoughts would pop into my mind without my own knowledge and drift me away from the task at hand. These little voices in my head would circle in a loop like a preset playlist often draining me of my mental resources.

I was completely unaware of them at first and would often wonder where the time went by. Later as I started consciously noticing them, I realized that most of these thoughts were related to over-analyzing my past actions and decisions or worrying too much about how the future will unfold - Why did I say that in the discussion, how will others think about how I acted the other day, did the meeting go well, what if my decision didn't turn out as expected?

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Do You Really Want To Be A Manager?

Every person at some point in their career may need to ask themselves "Do I really want to be a manager?" The question may seem straightforward, but the answer is not. It requires digging deeper and finding answers for ourselves without relying on what others believe is the right thing for us to do.

Management may seem like a natural career progression for a great individual contributor, while it may not be the best way to expand our role. Much like our earlier decisions that landed us in a particular field, the choice to be a manager or not requires careful examination of our options. Management isn't the only way to grow, get a raise, or take on additional responsibilities from our current role.

Think of management as a maze with a simple entry that requires navigating multiple unknown paths along the way. It's easy to get lost, feel stuck, and lose hope unless we have patience, curiosity, and the ability to learn from its unique challenges. It requires reprogramming our brain to accept responsibility not only for ourselves but also for the team and provide the necessary tools and resources to help them succeed.