Originally published in Computerworld. This time of year is loaded with resolutions, predictions, and anticipation of great things to come. In that vein, let’s celebrate the New Year with how a project manager might fit new words to an old tune. ‘Tis the season to be humble Fa la la la la, la la la […]
I’m looking for a reference to something I thought I read but can no longer find. Technical people can work up to 6 hours a day on technical work. They may be at work longer, reading email, going to meetings, getting coffee, but they can only effectively do 6 hours of technical work a
I’ve had several discussions about maintenance in the past few days. I’m beginning to think I have a different definition of maintenance than other people do :-). For me, maintenance is fixing problems in code. Maintenance is short, small, well-contained and code-based, and should be fixed by the developer(s) who created the problem. So
I had dinner recently with someone who said, “We put our candidates through the wringer. First we test them, then we interview them, then we give them another test.” I spoke with someone else whose manager wants an extensive role play to pit candidates against each other (sounds a little like The Apprentice to me).
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Due to incredible volume of spam comments, I’m moving to a new commenting system. The new one is installed. I’m working on importing the old comments to this system. In the meantime, it’s ok to leave comments here.
In my project management class today, one of the students asked about how to schedule interdependent sub-projects. The scheduling tool he uses doesn’t deal well with pieces of one sub-project having dependencies of other sub-projects. It’s difficult to see the critical path, and to know what’s really going on. (It’s too easy to have
I’m in Israel this week, teaching project management. In one class, a student asked, “How technical does a PM have to be?” The inevitable answer: it depends. A project manager needs to understand the dynamics behind the work of the project. I was teaching software (and hardware) project management today. A PM for a software
Clarke Ching’s Multitasking MAKES YOU STUPID is another great article. But when I teach PMs or coach managers, they say, “I need to multitask to get things done.” Or, they say, “I’m ok with multitasking.” Even smart people think they can do a couple of things at one time. Maybe they can. But the more
In Handwriting and Your Job Search, Maya refers to It’s All in the Handwriting. Maya, you’ve been had. I wrote about this on the Bostonworks HR blog, see Debunking Graphology.Graphologists (if you can even honor them with a scientific-sounding name) are selling snake oil. I bet your handwriting looks a lot like your mother’s, or