Managers have an obligation to coach employees to help employees obtain better performance. However, managers choose when and whom to coach. Managers also have an obligation to provide feedback — which is not a choice. Every employee deserves feedback about his/her work on a frequent (weekly) basis. I’ve never met a manager who didn’t […]
In his comment, Rich explains, “I am directly managing 12 employees and 14 contractors doing application support and maintenance for something like 12 or 15 software products. I have most of my old team, and 6 other teams. I have been asked to develop a plan to cross train these individuals to build out a
Sound of hand slapping forehead. Argh, I posted this in the Managing Product Development blog, got interrupted, and forgot to post it here. If you’re in Wellington, New Zealand on Mar 15, Sydney on Mar 17, and in Israel during Mar 23-31, let me know. I’ll be there (and there and there) and would love
I just got off the phone with a colleague who discovered his boss is reading his email. The employee, whom I’ll call Dave, is hurt, unhappy, angry, and frustrated. “Yes, I know my email isn’t private, but what did I do that would prompt my boss to read my email?” The more he talked,
Hiring the Best… is featured on CEORead.com this week. They have an excerpt from Chapter 1 available to read.I’m back from my travels and will be posting more regularly again.
The two articles I found most telling about Carly Fiorina’s departure from HP are Worst. CEO. Ever. and Carly Fiorina and management. High tech organizations require a vision (from the CEO), a budget, and room for innovation. Maybe I missed it, but Fiorina didn’t provide any vision, except for cost-cutting. When will senior managers
Eric Sink’s ad for a software developer is a terrific example of an ad that screens out people who aren’t suitable for the position. Note the description of deep expertise in that SQL stuff, and the emphasis on knowing how to read code, not just write code. Sure Eric may receive a bunch of unsuitable
In the Hiring Geeks That Fit book, I wrote this (p. 261): Functional managers organize the work of similar people (people performing a given function). They hand off their deliverables to another group. Project managers coordinate the work of numerous people to deliver a product to the organization. Matrix managers manage people of a similar
My first column for the Fast Company/Inc. Hiring Center is up. See Cultural Fits and Starts. I don’t see a way to leave comments there, so please do leave comments here.
I gave a talk at the local PDMA group called “Setting Expectations Between Engineering and the Three PMs”, attempting to clarify how the roles of product management, program management, and project management are sometimes confused, and to suggest practices that help people unconfuse them. I set up teams of people to create a little