I’m close to falling into “Crossing the Desert” syndrome. A project team focuses on an interim milestone, works like the devil to meet that milestone. They meet the milestone, look up, and realize they’re not at the end of the project–they still have to finish the darn thing. They’re living the Crossing the Desert
I’m happy to report I met my Jan 1 date to finish the manuscript draft for Successful Project Management. I wrote many words last week. So many that I have no idea whether they are good words or not 🙂 I’ve been blathering at my editor, who is probably ready to shoot me if
Tristan, the senior manager in charge of all projects, strides into Ilene’s office and plunks himself down in her visitor’s chair. “Ilene, you are the project manager in charge of the project to save the company, right?” Ilene nods. “I really need you to fit this other feature into this release,” Tristran says. “We’re toast
Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Making Waterfall (a Serial Lifecycle) Work For You, Part 3 Announcements =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Making Waterfall (a Serial Lifecycle) Work For You, Part 3 In the previous two issues, I suggested some approaches for making a waterfall work for you. If you missed either of those issues, see Waterfall Part
Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Making Waterfall (a Serial Lifecycle) Work For You, Part 2 Announcements =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Making Waterfall (a Serial Lifecycle) Work For You, Part 2 Last month, I suggested some approaches for making a waterfall work for you. If you missed that issue, see <https://www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager/waterfallpart1.html>. Assuming you’re somewhere in the coding
Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Making Waterfall (a Serial Lifecycle) Work For You, Part 1 Announcements =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Making Waterfall (a Serial Lifecycle) Work For You, Part 1 If you read my blog, or have heard me speak, you know I’m not a fan of serial lifecycles, such as waterfall. In fact, unless you
Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Discovering and Maintaining Your Project’s Heartbeat, Part 1 Announcements =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Discovering and Maintaining Your Project’s Heartbeat Some projects zoom along, making progress regularly. Others feel as if they slog along, with barely any progress from week to week, or worse, month to month. Why? The zooming projects have
Contents: This month’s Feature Article: How Many Emergency Projects Do You Have? Announcements =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: How Many Emergency Projects Do You Have? A project manager at a client took me aside recently. “Johanna, how many emergency projects should I have?” I was a bit surprised and asked what he meant. “Well, my boss thinks
Normally, I’m huge fan of continuous integration. Continuous integration is when everyone integrates his or her code every day, preferably as each little tiny piece is built and tested (or in the case of test-driven development, tested and built). The developer checks his or her code in, does a local build, checks the build, and
Pawel caught me being ambiguous. See his comment, “1. I’ve seen features/fixes which required 2 days to be developed and released.” Sorry, me too. But what I tried to say was this: A feature was estimated to be some duration of person-hours. Those person-hours have come and gone. The feature still requires another 10-12