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The concern of practice leadership is the posture and behaviour of the organisation as a whole, in some field of practice that cuts across products, projects and teams.
Insofar as practice leadership is associated with a particular outcome, it addresses that outcome through attention to the practices that affect it, and the people who must engage in the practice.
A practice lead is a particular kind of leader in the organisation. For more context: What is practice leadership?
At Canonical¶
Canonical has established a model of practice leadership in software as part of its wider ambitions for engineering excellence. The model needs to be systematic, pragmatic and adaptable - for example to domains beyond engineering. Above all, it needs to be effective. At the heart of that model is the person of the practice lead who is responsible for it.
The aim of this handbook is to help practice leads help Canonical towards its ambitions, by instituting and maintaining a way of doing things - a practice.
It will help practice leads set out their own picture of what their role is and what to do in it: part of the work of each practice lead is to define the practice, and therefore to define not just their own role too, but the idea of practice leadership itself.
Half of practice is theory, and that’s an important part of the work. The handbook also provides some practical guidance and reusable resources, to help navigate the challenges of this new role.
About the handbook¶
The handbook was created to support the development of company-wide practice leadership at Canonical, but has also been used at much smaller scales, and could be useful in other organisations. It is largely based on experiences in establishing documentation practice as a discipline.
The handbook is accompanied by a short workbook (Google document) designed to help users capture key ideas and values, and think about how to express them as a project that draws in the support of their colleagues.
The handbook and workbook are published under a Creative Commons BY-SA licence.
Contents¶
Your project’s early days¶
You need to communicate your project and its vision, in such a way that other people want to be part of them. You need people’s faith in you, as a leader and you need them to work with you.
