I had a great time in Japan last week with Esther. On the flight home, we started plotting our next book! @kaztak_en, Thank you for your invitation to see your team. It looks and sounds as if you are on your agile way. @kdmsnr, Thank you for your gracious hosting on Tuesday. You were even […]
Calvin is a technical lead, the team’s “go-to” guy. Now in his late thirties, he’s been developing since he graduated and has been a tech lead for the past five years. When anyone has a technical question, Calvin finds the answer. In the past, he’s been available to help others with their design, and he’s
I was talking with a project manager the other day. He said, “I don’t have enough developers, testers, or UI people. What am I going to do?” I said, “Well, you have enough people if you have more time. Do you have more time?” He rolled his eyes, and said, “What do you think?” “Then,
I’ve been working with program teams lately, and some of them have issues when they talk about different teams on their programs when they use words such as “headquarters” and “remote” locations. The headquarters teams tell me the remote teams don’t listen to them and the remote teams tell me the headquarters teams don’t hear
Recently, I spoke with a hiring manager. He wanted to make sure a person he thought was overqualified for a position stayed in the job for two years. (!!) He was asking candidates to commit to his job for two years in the interview process. If an organization can commit to a candidate for two
Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work In the last Pragmatic Manager, Start Small, I explained how to start small, and invited you to email me if you were trying to multitask among several projects, but couldn’t make it work. Several of you did. In this Pragmatic Manager, I’m going to walk you through what happens and the
“I want to move to agile. Or lean. I don’t know which. I just know I have to show progress more often. I want to be able to adapt to changing conditions. That means I have to choose between timeboxes or Kanban, right?”– a confused project manager, on the verge of adopting a more agile
A colleague was looking for a way to move toward agile but not really transition all the way. “I don’t think we’re ready for two- or three-week iterations,” he said. “We want to move a little more slowly than that. But, we do want to do something more agile than waterfall. And, we want to
I often receive emails from readers asking questions such as “We have ten developers and two testers. How do we compare to our industry?”; “We have six-week iterations and a two-month hardening iteration at the end of our release. How agile are we?”; “We finish twelve stories in a four-week iteration. How many stories do
Rothman Consulting Group, Inc. Vol 7, #5: 2010’s Small New Year’s Eve Tip: Start With Small Steps December 31, 2010 In This Issue:2010’s Small New Year’s Eve Tip: Start Small Thinking About Training in 2011? Manage Your Project Portfolio 2010’s Small New Year’s Eve Tip: Start Small I hope you are enjoying