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Johanna’s Books
Tag Archives: productivity
Throughput or Productivity?
I’m tech-editing an article for the Agile Journal. I’m having a discussion with the author about the words “productivity” and “throughput.” I believe that what we measure in agile teams is throughput, the number of features through the team over … Continue reading
Looking for a Reference
I’m looking for a reference to something I thought I read but can no longer find. Technical people can work up to 6 hours a day on technical work. They may be at work longer, reading email, going to … Continue reading
Managers Manage Actions Including Decisions
My colleague, a senior manager, is inundated with too much to do. Hundreds of emails, seven of hours of meetings every day, hundreds of emails, hiring the next level managers so he doesn’t have to backfill, project portfolio management, … Continue reading
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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Showing Project Progress (NOT percent complete)
Last night at my SPIN talk someone came up to me at the end of the talk. I’d discussed earned value and inch-pebbles in my talk but hadn’t specifically discussed how to avoid the dreaded “percent complete” reporting problem … Continue reading
Posted in measurement
Tagged agile, inch pebble, iterative planning, productivity, project management
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The Never-Ending Search for Higher Productivity
On the face of it, higher productivity looks like a Good Thing. More products for less time. Who wouldn’t want this? But I wonder about this search for higher productivity. What do managers really want? If you want to … Continue reading
Posted in capacity
Tagged agile, management, productivity, project portfolio management, timebox
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Predicting Project Completion
It’s fall conference season, and I’ve been quiet because of the travel and final preparations for sessions. One of my sessions at the AYE conference is called Predicting Project Completion. I decided it was time to explore how to … Continue reading
What if Managers Worked Smarter?
I was reading David Anderson’s Working Smarter Not Harder and thought about managers. David’s right, a few small improvements can dramatically increase a team’s productivity and therefore lower the cost of development. But I contend that most of the productivity … Continue reading
Competitive ‘Research’ About Overtime
It’s worth taking a quick listen to Commentary – Overtime’s not good for your health. The folks from University of Arkansas actually have data that says overtime is ok and doesn’t reduce productivity. Hah! I wonder where their data … 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
