When I teach project management, I teach people to know what success means, and to know what done means (release criteria). One of my students recently emailed me: At work recently, we’ve come upon a scenario where we have no success criteria (or more accurately, success criteria that we can measure in any way).
Take a look at HBS’s Working Knowledge, Hiring for Executive Intelligence. Some quotes that rocked my world: IQ test questions don’t assess the practical, on-your-feet thinking skills needed in business. What’s more, these tests have been repeatedly accused of racial and gender bias. Yet, despite these very real shortcomings, IQ tests are still a better predictor
I’m working with a group of people who are new to iterative development. They’re doing more of a staged delivery lifecycle than an agile lifecycle, but they are releasing about once a month. They don’t like it, because they say they’re releasing too frequently. The problem is that their planning and releasing take too
I’m doing a webinar for Kennedy Information Systems next Friday, Dec. 9, 2005. The webinar is Detecting Cultural Fit Issues. It’s updated from the webinar I did in February. Please use the Kennedy link to register for the webinar. And for those of you who are wondering, I’m fine, just crazy-busy, which is why I
I have an opportunity to review process documentation (actual and proposed) from many organizations. I admit, I have a prejudice for more Agile techniques (integrated into any lifecycle). But non-Agile techniques work too. Here’s what I find doesn’t work: making the process dependent on the personalities of the people who have to carry out
I teach a class called “Software Methodology” at The Gordon Institute. My goal is for the students to be able to recognize if a software project is not being managed properly, and to give them a feel for what a software project might be like. So, I have them organize themselves into teams and
The Orasi folks have posted my fall webinars, both the audio and PDF presentation. If you missed What Makes a Great Product Manager? Managing the Project Portfolio Delivering the Right Product on Time: Setting Expectations between Engineering and the Three PMs check out the webinars.
I received an email from a reader today, along with an outline of their hiring process. They spend about 6-8 hours with each candidate, most of which is a series of auditions. They spend maybe an hour with behavior-description questions. These folks have an atypical problem—they’re hiring for consultants, so they need to know how
Warning: I’m on a rant. Yesterday’s Wall St. Journal had an article called “Behind ‘Shortage’ of Engineers: Employers Grow More Choosy” (if I could figure out the URL, I would paste it in here, but I can’t figure out how to do that. Sharon Begley is the author, and the WSJ requires registration. If you’re
In the immortal words of Dilbert/Scott Adams, “Agile programming doesn’t just mean doing more work with fewer people.” See today’s cartoon.