You’re a busy product person, a Product Owner. You have information the team needs, and you want to meet. A lot. You see the need for these meetings: Standups Backlog refinement Iteration planning Strategic updates, so the team knows what’s going on. Sounds reasonable. Except, the team thinks you want to meet too often. What […]
Michael Mahlberg taught me something cool last week. We’re writing an article together. Part of the article is about forecasts. I was ranting and raving about how to help people see their confidence levels. He pointed me to this slideshare: Lightweight Kanban Metrics (in German). (Don’t worry about the language.) Go to slides 24, 25,
Are you on “Paid Time Off” (PTO) this and/or next week? Several of my clients claim they’re on PTO. That’s what their “away” email says. Yet, they’ve sent me emails, direct messages, all kinds of interactions. What gives? Several possibilities. Too often, they feel they must: Finish some work before the end of the year.
I’ve been working with teams that feel a ton of pressure. On top of the pressure, a senior manager says these words: “Failure is not an option.” When managers say that, they ignore all the possibilities for success. They put their heads down, ignoring ways to manage risk. When managers don’t collaborate to manage risk, we
Having trouble finding people to fit your remote team? Not sure if or how to distribute the hiring responsibilities? Pretty sure your in-person hiring approach won’t translate to remote work? Mark Kilby and I have you covered. We collaborated with LucidMeetings to create this wonderful new class about hiring: How to Discover, Interview, and Hire
Several of my clients have intertwined problems. Everyone agrees they want innovation: Which products and services the organization offers. (The project portfolio) What features the product offers, or the problems the product solves. (The product roadmap) In the team, to solve the problems in a way that will attract users/buyers/customers. (The team’s backlog and how
Steve, a software development manager, thought John was a “10x” developer. He explained that John could: Coded faster than anyone else. Write and release full applications over a weekend. “Mind-meld” with the users. No one else in Steve’s group could do this. Was I willing to support and coach the other people in Steve’s group
One of my reviewers for the Modern Management Made Easy books asked a fascinating question: I’ve never seen this many women in management or in senior leadership positions. Do these stories reflect your experience? Yes, the stories reflect my experience. Let me offer a little history. My History, Not Anyone Else’s History I started to
A Scrum Master asked, “How can I engage my team during a remote retrospective? People tell me things they think we could change. Then, we get into the retro and I know people are looking at their phones, not engaged. Got ideas?” I do. These ideas refer to safety. That’s because teams need safety for
Part 1 was mostly about unintentional plagiarism. Part 2 was about copyright and when to reference other people’s work. Now, you’re pretty sure someone has used your words. You’re not talking about someone scraping your blog for your posts. You really mean Person A has stolen your words and passed those words off as Person