Manage It! Book Status
I am happy to report that Manage It! is at the printer, both the book and the cover. We’re looking sometime in June as a ship date. Just thought you’d want to know 🙂 Labels: Manage It, project management
Books, MPD
management, MPD
Helping People Move On
George Dinwiddie pointed me to this great column, Fired With Enthusiasm. I have a talk that I’ve given at a bunch of Software Development conferences, called “Successful Software Management: X Lessons Learned,” where X started at 8, and is now up to 16. Lesson # 11 is “Fire People Who Can’t Do the Work.” I
HTP, network
Exploiting Your Alumni Network
I’m one of the folks writing a monthly column over at Recruitingtrends.com. My first column is Exploiting Your Alumni Network.
MPD
Time for Innovation in Timeboxes?
As part of some recent consulting and training, one of the project managers asked, “How do you make time for innovation in timeboxes? If everyone’s busy all the time, how can you allow people time to think for real innovation?” Good question. I asked how people had time for innovation now. The PM wasn’t
MPD, project management
Letting Go of BDUF
I’ve taught several workshops where people wanted to learn how to start adopting some agile approaches. They knew about timeboxing, but didn’t quite see how to make it work. The part they were missing was having working valuable product at the end of each timebox. I explain that to the participants, and they nod sagely.
Agile Job Search, HTP
Keep Your Resume Short
A capable senior manager has been looking for a new job for a couple of months. He’s a capable guy, and although two months isn’t that long, I was surprised that he’s had no nibbles.Then I saw his resume. His resume was 5 pages long, and had too much detail to read quickly. It also
MPD, project management
Milestones are Handoffs
I taught a workshop about transitioning to Agile earlier this week. One of the things that’s difficult for many project managers to recognize is that milestones must be deliverables–otherwise, it’s too hard to know when something is done. One of the participants had a slightly puzzled look on his face when I said that,
Books, MPD
New Name, New Cover
After speaking with Mary Poppendieck at the Software Development conference a few weeks ago, I instigated a name change for Successful Project Management with Andy and Dave. Mary said the name was boring, and I had a number of cutesy suggestions. Luckily, Dave cut through the cute, and we decided on “Manage It!: Your Guide
Books, MPD, writing
Strengthening Writing
During the past few week, while editing Successful Project Management, I had an opportunity learned to discover other ways I weaken my writing. I already knew about “get” and “put” and “do”–any words you can command a computer–are weak verbs. It’s ok to use them to start writing, but my writing is stronger when
conference, MPD
About the 2007 AYE Conference
From time to time, I refer to AYE. It’s a conference several other consultants and I created back in 2000. We were tired of feeling forced into short sessions where it was too hard to convey how our topics felt to people. (There’s just so much you can do with PowerPoint.) At AYE, all