Student Syndrome occurs when the person with the task waits until the last possible moment to start. Some people spend their entire academic career waiting until the night before a project is due and then starting it, pulling an all-nighter, and getting some (hopefully adequate) grade. Student Syndrome isn’t for me, but I know lots
Many companies think an employee referral program is a form of viral marketing. Most of the time, they’re not. Take a look at If your referral programs don’t spread from person to person, it isn’t viral for some great ideas to how to make an employee referral program work.I particularly liked the idea to RSSify
My PM students are articulating insights about projects that I’m happy to see. One project team said this in their charter, “The value of the product is moving the paper successfully across the room. The value of the project is in the journey, not the destination.” Some projects exist to see if the project
As part of an interview, a reporter asked me what the single biggest mistake managers make when hiring. Unfortunately, I see three common mistakes: Hiring based on a tools checklist (some number of years of Java or WinRunner or some other tool) as opposed to hiring someone who can adapt his/her knowledge to the products
Take a look at Boston Red Sox: Backstop Your Business. (Read the PDF or the printer-friendly version.) Here’s my big take-away: You have to know what differentiates your top performers from everyone else — and it’s not a single dimension measurement. If you live in a yank-and-rank organization, figure out what you need to do
I asked my project management students to create a project dashboard for the projects they’re organizing, so we can talk about what happens when the indicators go up down or sideways. One of the teams came up with a “risk constellation” chart — which I thought was a brilliant way to show risks. (If
As far as I know, this is the first review of the book. Take a look at here. I loved the part where Valentin said: During the trip, Johanna will hand out numerous check lists that will help you organize your work more efficiently and prevent you from going too deep into the mud. Thanks,
I’m teaching project management to graduate students this year. One of their assignments is to keep a project management journal. I explained it this way: PMs make decisions where the consequences — the results of their decisions — can be far removed from the decision. One of the things I want the students to
I facilitated a roundtable at Boston SPIN last night, and one of the questions that arose was “How do I negotiate salary?”Compensation is not just your salary. This is your opportunity to think about how you make your life. Do you want more time off? Money for books? Training time and/or money? A different title?
I presented a webinar today, Becoming a More Agile Tester. Here’s the PDF. (It’s a talk, so if you read it and think you’ve missed something, you have. Send me email with your question.) I’ve been thinking a lot about test assets these days, and here’s a highlight from the presentation, a comparison of