I was problem-solving with a potential client the other day. They want to manage their project portfolio. They use Jira, so they think they can see everything everyone is doing. (I’m a little skeptical, but, okay.) They want to know how much the teams can do, so they can do capacity planning based on what […]
A senior product manager had a great interview the other day. “I know the industry. I worked on the first generation of their product. I know their customers. I could do this job. I understand their problems. I showed them how I’d solved their problems in the past. I can do this again. “It’s a
My manager reviewed the org chart along with the budget. “I need to cut the budget. Which resources can we cut?” “Well, I don’t think we can cut software licenses,” I was reviewing my copy of the budget. “I don’t understand this overhead item here,” I pointed to a particular line item. “No,” he said.
Summary: It is unfortunate that the department attending to employees is called “Human Resources.” That language colors what managers call people in the organization. But the more you call people “resources,” the more they become interchangeable—and more like desks, or infrastructure, or something that is easily negotiable. Resources are not people. People are not resources.
When I speak to job hunters, they often think they can get a job doing what they studied, or what they have done, or they way they have always searched. “But the last three times I looked, I looked exactly this way.” “This is what I studied in school. I should be able to find
I posted my slides for my Agile 2014 talk, Agile Projects, Program & Portfolio Management: No Air Quotes Required on Slideshare. It’s a bootcamp talk, so the majority of the talk is making sure that people understand the basics about projects. Walk before you run. That part. However, you can take projects and “scale” them
I sent a Pragmatic Manager email last week, How to Avoid Three Big Estimation Traps. If you subscribed, you’d have seen it already. (That was a not-so-subtle hint to subscribe 🙂 If you’re not sure of the value of being on yet-another-email list, browse the back issues. You can see I’m consistent. Not about the
Have you read The next thing Silicon Valley needs to disrupt big time: its own culture? If not, it talks about hiring processes where companies Hire people “just like us” Where candidates can’t tell they are on interviews Where, if you wear a suit, you might be disqualified, because, hey, we don’t wear suits here.
How to Avoid Three Big Estimation Traps I bet you need to estimate how large your project or program will be, at the gross level: “It’s bigger than a breadbasket. It’s smaller than a person on the moon.” More likely, “It’s about x people for about y months with this percentage confidence.” Or, you use
“OK, I’m really glad we can start this management meeting now. It’s time to talk about standardization. I want to create standards for our projects. I want to standardize on agile for all of our projects.” Joseph, the CIO, thought all of his directors would be pleased. “Uh, Joseph, are you telling us you want