New York, NY -- (ReleaseWire) -- 02/03/2016 --"Whether you've been a CTO for one year or 20, there's always room for improvement," says Debbie Madden, CEO of Stride, an agile consulting firm in New York City. Yet, it can be difficult to gauge one's own progress without others for comparison.

Madden has developed a quiz for curious executives and bases her questions, answers and feedback on more than two decades of mentoring Chief Technology Officers in the NYC metro area. Once CTOs complete the quiz, Debbie emails them a copy of their score, along with a special offer of one hour in free mentoring if they so choose.

"Over the years, I've seen seven distinct habits weave a thread among the most successful of the bunch and I'd like to share that knowledge to help others achieve greater success in their careers," says Madden. "One of the biggest habits people miss is what I call 'managing up.' They work well with people below them in the hierarchy but may not even know who their bosses are. Proactively seeking these people out and updating them with your progress and understanding of their expectations will take you farther in your career than you imagine."

The "Are You An Effective CTO?" quiz helps tech leaders assess themselves in the following areas:

- Do you make good decisions fast?
- Do you know when to code?
- Do you create a culture of trust?
- Do you delegate effectively?
- Do you know what your boss expects of you and progress toward those goals?
- Do you know how to set reasonable expectations and measure success?
- Do you give timely feedback to your team?

The quiz can be accessed directly here: http://www.stridenyc.com/blog/habits-of-highly-successful-ctos.

Debbie Madden's Agile software consultancy is a unique business concept in the New York City area. So much consulting takes place solely online or by phone these days. However, Madden's team travels to their clients' locations to embed themselves with their clients' IT teams, get to know the core business goals, and provide mentorship on site. For more information on Madden's software consulting firm, visit www.stridenyc.com.

About Stride
Stride is an Agile consultancy in NYC. We embed and co-locate with tech teams (like Plated, Gust, Sailthru, Intent Media) to help you be your best. Think of us as Agile SWAT teams. We partner highly skilled Agile developers with your dev team. As a result, we leverage the skills of your entire team and help you improve code quality and your Agile process in perpetuity. Whether you seek process refinement (TDD, Refactoring, Tech Debt, Estimates, Continuous Delivery, etc.) or need to get high quality code out the door to launch your MVP, Stride is here to help.

About Debbie Madden
Debbie Madden has built five companies from the ground up and has been CEO of three of them. She is currently the CEO of Stride, an Agile software development consultancy in NYC. Prior to Stride, Debbie was the CEO of Cyrus Innovation, which she ran for 10 years, grew into a five-time Inc. 5000 winner, and Crain's NY Best Place to Work.

Contact:

175 Varick Street
Suite #423?
New York, NY 10014
(212) 634-7240
info@stride.nyc