This week’s podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. I finished the index and am about to get the various print layouts ready. Enjoy! The Podcast: The Transcript: This is 60 Seconds of Writing in Public with Johanna Rothman for August 29, 2025, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some […]
This is Johanna Rothman’s August 2025 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Amy, a project manager, said, “With all the changes going on, no one is quite sure of their next steps. The portfolio team is stuck because they can’t predict for a year anymore. The product leader
Today’s podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. I am deep into the indexing. Yes, this is part of the finishing that makes me somewhat nutso. That’s okay. I have promised myself a delightful beverage tonight, as long as I finish it today. (To be honest, I will have a delightful beverage whenever I
I have options for all kinds of work I want to do today: The creative work, which includes a wide variety of writing (articles, blog posts, and yes, more books) and more workshops Paperwork. Yes, I have accounting and all kinds of spreadsheet reconciliation. Client preparation work for when they return from their summer vacations.
This week’s podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. A funny thing happened on the way to the podcast. I’ve been heads-down, proofing and finishing the book. I plan to start the index today. That’s all finishing the book. I hate this part, but if I don’t do it, I can’t publish the book.
Is your team ever surprised by how long things take? Do you hear things such as: Team members say, “I’ve been waiting for code review for more than 2 days.” (See Measure Cycle Time, Not Velocity to see the various durations for solo, cooperative, and collaborative work. Cycle time is a team-based measure of feedback
This week’s podcast is from Effective Public Speaking. I need to finish proofing the book before I add the index. That will tell me how large the cover dimensions need to be, and I can continue. These are all the little details I just can’t stand, but I need to do them. Enjoy! The Podcast:
In a recent conversation, an unemployed agile coach asked, “What’s the point of a project manager, anyway?” Here’s what effective project managers do: They create the environment for the team to succeed. Here’s how effective project managers start: If the team does not yet have a project charter with the product goal, they facilitate or
A colleague recently asked me how a team can deliver something useful in the next four to five weeks. “That’s all? Just four to five weeks?” I asked. Yes, that was all the time they had remaining. They’d worked on this product for a while, but that was the time they had left. This problem
This week, my podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. My copyeditor is zooming through the chapters. I hope I can finish the manuscript next week to get ready for print, etc. The Podcast: The Transcript: This is 60 Seconds of Writing in Public with Johanna Rothman for August 1, 2025, where I read