Practices Articles

We’re curious people by nature. And we love to teach others what we’ve learned. So explore our blog to gain fresh insights from our expertise in areas ranging from culture to AI.

SEP Selected as a Nominee for TechPoint’s Innovation Mira Award

TechPoint has announced the nominees for its 25th annual Mira Awards, highlighting the most innovative companies, universities, and organizations in Indiana’s tech sector. The awards celebrate achievements across various categories, including the Innovation Partner of the Year. Nominees in this…
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Woman balancing project responsibilities

New Leads Need “Domains of Execution”

Okay, sure the title really needs to be “New leads should totally define a list of clusters of responsibilities that every project has so that they can make sure the project is appropriately supported” …but you get it. What’s a “Domain of Execution”? A domain is some cluster of responsibilities that your project will require […]
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Permission Slip Clip Art

New Leads Need to Give Real-Time Permission

Okay, okay, so the title should really be “New Leads (probably) Need to Practice Real-Time Permission (if they’re still uncomfortable with conflict, especially when a power dynamic is involved)”, but I feel like you get it. Where does “Real-Time Permission” come from? “Real-Time Permission” is a concept I barely acknowledged when I first read Patrick […]
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Radical Candor Quadrants

New Leads Need Self Directed Radical Candor

Hello! If you are new to Radical Candor, check out the concept directly from Kim Scott herself, Radical Candor in 6 minutes I should also mention that the title should really be “new leads who are terrible at thinking on their feet in front of a crowd need self directed radical candor.” It’s just… not […]
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Software team at table

New Leads Need to Prep for Staffing Conversations

One of the things I did terribly as a new lead was participate in staffing conversations for my team. Mainly, I was just unprepared in realizing the scope of what adding or removing a person meant on the distribution of responsibilities that a single team has to balance. In this blog post, you’ll find a […]
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The Bear Kitchen

New Leads Need “That’s Not My Oven!”

If your job was installing an oven in a kitchen, and on the day you do your install the electrician hasn’t installed an electrical socket where the oven’s supposed to go, you wouldn’t run an extension cord just to get your oven to work. You’d tell the foreman you’ll come back when they’re ready for […]
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scrolls on a shelf

New Leads Need The Engagement Chronicle

On the last day of a 20 month-long project, my customer asked me, “Could you give a brief overview of everything you guys have done for us over the last couple of years?” 😅 As a new lead, I hadn’t thought of starting an engagement chronicle until closer to the end of the project. By […]
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A Matter of When, Not If

Prologue You are enjoying a brisk December evening by the fireplace. The tea in your cup warms your hands and fills your nose with fragrant aroma. Then you realize that Christmas is in a week. The Stories in our Heads Are you anxious? Maybe you don’t have time to get presents shipped in time. Maybe […]
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Circumventing The Dark Side of Design

A Tale Old As Time Humans have had the tendency to be deceptive to one another for longer than any existing historical document can recall. One of the most infamous examples of this act being used as a literary device is the myth of the Trojan Horse in Homer’s Odyssey. This victory trophy, given to […]
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Diagram of outcome, opportunity, and solutions

Planning Features with Opportunity Solution Trees

New software projects often come with a long list of potential features. How do you evaluate these ideas before investing costly resources into development? At SEP, we’ve been mapping potential features with opportunity solution trees. They are a way to visualize the relationships between ideas and their desired outcomes, and to manage the gaps in […]
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