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 in a project. If you’re agile, I say you pair these people and be done […]
I was reading Must-Have Job Skills in 2013, and I was struck by the skills Mantell says job-seekers must have: Clear communications Personal branding Flexibility Productivity improvement Here’s what these mean for great geeks: Communications mean you have to be able to discuss what you mean with and without the correct jargon. With jargon, you
Anton Bangratz made my day today with his post, Management Myths Debunked by Johanna Rothman. He really liked Working Long? Rethink Why. I liked his reaction. Actually, I loved his reaction. Happy dance. The myths to date are here: The Myth of 100% Utilization Only the ‘Expert’ Can Perform This Work We Must Treat Everyone
I have a post, What’s the Culture on Your Project? that discusses the project issues of the Romney campaign. But there is a deeper issue. On a post that no longer exists there was an insightful comment from someone named redcal: who you hire to do the job DEFINES how well you do your job
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 leave untouched. If you read nothing else, read Inside Orca: How the Romney Campaign Suppressed
Are you working long? My column, Management Myth 10: I can Measure the Work by the Time People Spend at Work is posted today. People who work long hours think they also work hard. They are. But they are often not working smart. If you have a lot to do, you want to work smart,
Here is an alternative funnel, with what I hope is a better sense of proportion and scale. Your comments helped me a lot. Here’s the idea behind the funnel. You have ads that help your candidates screen themselves in or out. Of course, there are always some people who don’t screen themselves out, so you
“Have you heard the new thing that Andrew is doing?” Gabe asked, shaking his head as he headed towards the cafeteria with Cynthia. “No, what?” Cynthia said. “We have to fill out time cards with our actual time on them. He wants to know how much time we really spend at work. The more time,
At Agile 2012, Lisamarie Babik and I led an experiential workshop called Building a Team Through Feedback. We didn’t have slides; we had a first draft of an article as our handout. We worked on that article, and now we have a real article, Building a Team Through Feedback as our output. I had a
You had a candidate you really liked. The candidate really liked you, but decided to take a different position. That was 2-3 years ago. You have an opening now in your group, and this candidate pops into your head. What do you do? You contact the old candidate, that’s what! This is why you keep