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Johanna’s Books
Tag Archives: capacity
Optimizing for 100% Productivity Isn’t
A client was optimizing for what they thought was the bottleneck in their software development: the testers. In the assessment, I gathered some quantitative data about how long the testers took to test and how long it took for … Continue reading
Posted in project management
Tagged capacity, productivity, project portfolio management, project team
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Ask for More Value
David Anderson has an intriguing post, Lawyers, Unit Tests and Performance Reviews. David says “Individual team members can be set specific goals and behavior objectives…” and gives examples. I prefer that team members set their own goals with input from … Continue reading
More on Creating Faster Cheaper Projects
Hal posted his take on creating faster cheaper projects. I see that I did not make my assumptions clear in my original post. Hal had three problems (at least!) with my post: Fewer people increase the length of the … Continue reading
Posted in project management
Tagged capacity, project management, project success, team
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A Possible Assessment Technique
In the last few weeks, I’ve received several questions about how to assess the productivity and effectiveness of testers. I’m concerned about this, because a tester’s effectiveness doesn’t just depend on the quality of the tester’s work, it depends … Continue reading
Projects and Programs Require Managers
In addition to Frank Patrick’s excellent post of the Top 10 Sources of Project Failure, I have one more: No project manager. In the past week, I’ve received inquiries from people, asking how they can successfully complete projects or … Continue reading
Personal Productivity — or is it Effectiveness?
Earlier, I made an off-hand comment, “The zeroth measure of productivity is showing up.” I now think showing up is necessary, but not sufficient. I’ve been thinking about what each of us produces individually, and thinking of ways to … Continue reading
Measuring Productivity #3: Possible Measurements
The zeroth measure of productivity is showing up. Sorry I haven’t been showing up, but I have to admit, sleeping is good :-) Ok, back to business. When I tried to calculate productivity of a team, here’s what I … Continue reading
Measuring Productivity #2: Measurement Considerations
When we think about manufacturing work, we measure labor productivity as the ratio of the output of goods and services to the labor hours devoted to the production of that output, output per hour. (See U.S. Dept of Labor) … Continue reading
Know When to Ask for Help
In my travels last week, I contracted a cold. And of course, life doesn’t stop just because I have a cold and my brain doesn’t work. I still have writing, phone calls, consulting, and driving to manage. I managed … Continue reading
Mastery or Level?
I use the CMM in my work. The CMM/CMMI is a wonderful collection of key process areas. Every product development environment can use many of the key process areas to improve their work. The keyword in that sentence is … Continue reading
