Becoming an agile people manager

The world doesn’t like testers. As a tester, I spend time and effort trying to improve the world for testers to live in. Then I also became a manager. Now I have to start over to improve the next space! And my plan of attack is to set an example by being the best manager I can be.

Never one to ignore a challenge, I’ve been exploring what it means to be a good people manager, and especially, to be a good manager in an agile context, where the focus is not on command and control, but on encouraging people to be autonomous and sharing information. In this talk, I want to share stories and my own personal “rules of engagement” – principles to guide me and concrete actions or responses to common situations.

I’ll go into:

•The power and danger of empathy

•The rule of yes or tomorrow

•Rituals for trust

•Being authentic and vulnerable

•Leading by example

I’ll share things that have worked, things that haven’t, and how I reflect on my growth and learnings to keep progressing.