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Johanna’s Books
Tag Archives: risk
Nurturing Leadership
I had an email conversation with a colleague about when you let people fail versus when you rescue them—how you nurture leadership. The context is with people who are new to management, or new to a particular piece of work … Continue reading
What’s the Culture on Your Project?
Now that the election is over, we have an opportunity to reflect on some of the project management and hiring practices. I’m going to blog here and over at Hiring Technical People because the bits are just too juicy to … Continue reading
Posted in project management
Tagged dashboard, HIring Geeks That Fit, program management, project culture, release criteria, risk, schedule game
1 Comment
Transition to Agile, Large Technical Debt, Small Project
Many months ago, Rebecca asked an interesting question about technical debt in projects. She asked, How to start when there’s a really big mess? In that case, small, just being a professional clean-up acts may not even make a dent. … Continue reading
Posted in agile
Tagged backlog, project management, risk, technical debt, transition to agile
11 Comments
Break the Email Chain
One of the problems in a geographically distributed team is the dreaded email chain. Someone has a problem and sends an email. Probably late in the day, when he or she is frustrated after pounding on the problem all day, … Continue reading
Posted in project management
Tagged agile, email chain, geographically distributed teams, risk
2 Comments
Plan for Murphy
It seems strange to plan for Murphy’s Law, but if you don’t plan for risks, they will happen and they will turn into disasters. Some risks you can’t plan for, but many risks you can anticipate. I plan for some … Continue reading
Managers and (Disaster) Planning
I’ve been watching, reading, and listening to the Katrina coverage over the past week. And the one thing that stands out for me is my perception that there was a lack of disaster planning. I’m not going to play … Continue reading
Impossible Schedules Reinforce No Thinking
I’ve been thinking a lot about impossible schedules. I’m talking about the project schedules that no matter how you organize the project, it’s not possible for this group of people to cram that set of features into this much … Continue reading
Seeing Risks
I asked my project management students to create a project dashboard for the projects they’re organizing, so we can talk about what happens when the indicators go up down or sideways. One of the teams came up with a … Continue reading
Adaptability
I’m a Tour de France addict. I bicycle like those guys only in my dreams. But when I was watching the race last night, I realized something: the riders who are in a position to win the Tour are … Continue reading
What’s the Worst Thing that Could Happen?
At Boston SPIN last night, Tim Lister of “Waltzing with Bears” fame gave a talk about recognizing and managing risk. It was great. If you ever have a chance to see Tim speak in person, do so (Yes, Tom … Continue reading
