I was reading Ralph’s post, Whose Fault Is It?, and I realized that if you don’t know enough about management, you can misunderstand the root cause. Ralph’s example is of defects in an iteration and how they were not detected early enough because the acceptance criteria were missing. The criteria were missing because the testers
I had a lovely email conversation with someone who wanted to hire a firm to perform phone screens. That just makes no sense to me. Here’s what happens when a hiring manager performs the phone screens: When a hiring manager creates a phone screen script, the manager refines the essentials of the job. Based on
I spoke recently with a (new) Scrum Master with a team who’s new to Scrum. One of the team members is a little stuck. He doesn’t feel comfortable going to the task board to take a task when he’s done. He wants to wait until someone else is ready and then work with that person.
I don’t normally pay much attention to these kinds of things, but what the heck, this will give Jurgen a link back. Jurgen has collated the Top 100 Blogs for Development Managers (Q3 2008). I have no idea if he will continue to do this quarter after quarter (!). I’m glad that other people find
So you didn’t get the promotion. Before you look for a new job, ask why. It’s possible you’re missing something critical for that role. Many years ago, I was working as a “senior member of the technical staff.” I was a tester, had coordinated beta tests, much of the testing work for the last couple
I was trying to address the issue of ROI (Return on Investment) in the project portfolio book. I don’t buy project ROI. First, the idea of a project for software is an artificial construct—our consumers buy running tested features, that we happen to package in a project to release as a product. But the idea
In July, I sent out the Pragmatic Manager email newsletter: 90% Done is Not Almost Done. I have finally posted it. Enjoy!
Bob Payne interviewed me at Agile 2008. We spoke about my initial plans for Agile 2009, and my (in-writing) project portfolio book. The link is here: Agile 2009 – Johanna Rothman – Agile Portfolio Management and Agile 2009. I had a blast with Bob. If you’re wondering why it sounds like I’m chewing my cud
Doug was concerned. He was the project manager for a brand new product. After a few specific features, the product manager wasn’t quite sure what needed to be in the first release. The developers were working in a new language. The testers had never seen this new database. And, his management wanted the first release
Glen Alleman has a post about program management, Managing Multiple Projects is Called Program Management which got me thinking. (I’ve written about program management in the past also: Program Management: Multiple Projects With Multiple Deliverables.) But in the portfolio management book, I defined a few ways to think about your projects as programs: You, and