Hal’s post about the meaning of project management got me thinking about accountability and how we use it in organizations. In the last three weeks, I’ve heard these definitions: “I want to know who’s accountable. Who do I get to fire if they screw up?” “The testers/project manager/management team is accountable for the bugs. […]
If you’re a hiring manager, you may want to know a candidate’s greatest strength and/or weakness. Unfortunately, if you ask openly like this, it becomes a not-so-hot interview question. See Practice Before Interviewing. If you were to ask me about a weakness, I could answer this way, “Well, I have a tendency to work a
In his comment to my previous post, Babu said, “unqualified project managers quickly sink a project which would’ve otherwise fared better.” (Keith, I’ll respond to your next comment in another post.) I’ve had the pleasure of meeting great project managers, and some not-so-great project managers. Here’s my list of necessary skills for great project
In addition to Frank Patrick’s excellent post of the Top 10 Sources of Project Failure, I have one more: No project manager. In the past week, I’ve received inquiries from people, asking how they can successfully complete projects or programs without project or program managers. I tell them I don’t know how to do that.
I’ve been musing over types of people on projects lately. This morning, my husband and I exhibited two common types: the serially, walk-through-the-whole-thing-systematically type (hubby), and the big picture, can’t-wait-to-see-it-put-together type (me). See Do Your Interview Questions Discriminate For or Against Your Needs? for more information. Mark’s a Guardian (SJ in MBTI terms), I’m a Rational (NT
Every so often, I hear managers say things they vowed they’d never say when they were technical contributors. (Yeah, parents do that too, but that’s not the topic today 🙂 Here are a few of my favorites with their translations: “We have expertise in that area.” Translation: We have no idea what you’re talking about,
It’s worth taking a quick listen to Commentary – Overtime’s not good for your health. The folks from University of Arkansas actually have data that says overtime is ok and doesn’t reduce productivity. Hah! I wonder where their data came from. On the other hand, Joe Robinson’s commentary makes perfect sense to me. Here are
I was reading Andy Tinkham’s “Disproportionate amount of introverts in software testing” (post is now missing) and saw a comment that one person tends to discriminate for introverts in testing. I agree with the intent of the comment, that the hiring manager wants people who are organized and pay attention to the work. However, I
I’m at an experiential workshop this week, learning how to design simulations for my workshops and presentations. If you’ve attended one of my workshops or public tutorials in the past 2-3 years (at least), you’ve had a chance to participate in a simulation. If you haven’t yet, don’t worry. I don’t ask people to
From the “I wish I’d said that” list: Via Frank Patrick’s blog, Mike Cohn, in his User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development. Chapter 10, Why Plans Go Wrong in pdf, explains buffers and padding and scheduling: “A Buffer Isn’t Padding — A buffer isn’t padding. Padding is extra time added to a schedule that