One of the questions I get asked most often is how to stay up to date with everything in the fast moving world of software and technology. You know what, it’s not going to be possible to know the ins and outs of the coolest framework in every language. It’s also long past the time when you could know all the various support tools that your team might benefit from using.

Let go of the concept of knowing everything and trust instead that your team, who are working on the actual software development day to day, know the details of the technologies needed to get the job done. Instead focus on a higher level – are there ways the team could be working better together, is communication clear, are people learning a wide range of skills. Where you see opportunity to help improve something then by all means investigate options for the software / tool / platform that might help – but don’t go to your team with solutions, help them to see the opportunity to improve and work with them to get the right solution.

Remember that your team is full of smart individuals at the top of their game (if not then there’s another question to look at) and they have either already seen the problem but not had time to address it, or are going to be much more interested in a solution that they were part of finding rather than one you brought to the table!