I’ve said I don’t like the “Tell me About Yourself” question long ago and more recently. It’s not a useful question. But that’s not going to stop interviewers from asking it. Here are my three tips for answer this question. Remember that you are not your degrees or certifications. Remember that you are not your
One of my clients was having trouble with estimating work they had never done before, so I wrote an article explaining spikes. That article is up on agileconnection: Need to Learn More about the Work You’re Doing? Spike It! It was a little serendipity; I taught an estimation workshop right after I explained how to
Did you see Recruiting Animal’s review of Manage Your Job Search? It’s terrific. One of the things I like best about his review is that he talks about each section of the book and explains what he likes about each section. In his review, he has a great tip on how to introduce yourself. Go
This post is what you do when you are a program manager and not everyone knows what “agile” is, when you create a new product, when you are introducing that much cultural change? (In the program management book, I will talk more specifically about change and what to do. This post is the highlights.) Project
In Manage Your Job Search, I suggest the job hunter timebox everything. But what does that look like? Here are some examples. Imagine you want to research companies to put on your target list. I say you need 25 companies on your target list in the networking chapter. You roll your eyes and you are
Back when I was a manager inside organizations, I had many days that looked like this: Meetings at 9am, 10am, 11am. Working meeting through lunch (noon-1pm) Meetings at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm. I finally got a chance to check my email at 4pm. That’s when I discovered the world had blown up earlier in the day!
Summary: Busy managers get used to making decisions on the fly. But, some decisions require more thought and consideration than others. Johanna offers some tips for knowing when you need to slow down, take a seat, and give a problem your undivided attention. Janet tried to catch Bill, the CIO, on his way to his
I’m not a fan of using schedule or cost estimate as a way to value the projects in your project portfolio. If you do, you are likely to miss the potentially transformative projects or programs. In Manage Your Project Portfolio, I have an entire chapter devoted to ways to evaluate your project portfolio: business value
I’m shopping for furniture for our new house. I need a chair or a sofa for our family room, lights, all kinds of things. I was on Facebook, and there was an ad that looked interesting. I thought, “Should I click?” I clicked anyway. The site wants my email address. I can’t see anything without
If you read Thomas Friedman’s interview with Laszlo Bock, How to Get a Job at Google, Part 2, you see that these qualities are the things that Bock discusses: Grit, which I refer to as perseverance Adaptability General cognitive ability, the ability to think and solve problems How does Bock look for those skills? He