Mike Dent

Being an engineering manager and a coach

TLDR: Listen to people and have good intentions. Read time ~ 6 mins For anyone who’s spent five minutes trying to understand me, they know that my purpose is to grow myself to grow others. My path in the last few years seems to have been driven by a deep need to understand how toContinue reading “Being an engineering manager and a coach”

6 lessons I’ve learned from working with Agile Ninjas

TLDR; Eliminate waste.Read Time ~ 5 minutes Boy has it been an odd year. A year of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA), and having an agile mindset has never been more important. Despite the sombre backdrop of 2020, good leaders have definitely learned, grown and adapted to the challenge during this time. Thankfully, oneContinue reading “6 lessons I’ve learned from working with Agile Ninjas”

Why emotional intelligence is increasingly required in software development

TLDR; Because AI can’t automate human emotion (yet).Read time ~ 7 minutes “emotional intelligence—the ability to, for instance, understand your effect on others and manage yourself accordingly—accounts for nearly 90 percent of what moves people up the ladder when IQ and technical skills are roughly similar” https://blog.dce.harvard.edu/professional-development/emotional-intelligence-no-soft-skill Emotional intelligence (sometimes referred to as EQ) isContinue reading “Why emotional intelligence is increasingly required in software development”

The balance of people and product

TLDR; favour people. So a combination of finishing my new favourite book “The Infinite Game” by Simon Sinek, a change in career and some pretty heavy family events has led me to reflect a lot on this question. To clarify, when leaders favour people over products, they make a conscious decision to sacrifice the speedContinue reading “The balance of people and product”

A call to action for software companies – talk to each other!

“At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly” Agile Principles So states the agile principle, but considering we’re all supposed to be finding new ways of improving, it sure is darn hard to talk to other teams about it. Firstly, let me say networkingContinue reading “A call to action for software companies – talk to each other!”