Are you trying to make an agile framework or approach work? Maybe you have technical or schedule risk. Or, maybe you’ve received a mandate to “go agile.” Maybe you’d like to experiment with better ways of working. Or, maybe you’re trying to fit an agile framework into your current processes—and you’ve got a mess. You’re […]
Everyone feels the pressure right now. Many managers feel pressure to deliver more and better products and services. That pressure rolls downhill to the people doing the work. And, the people doing the work, especially if they’re parents? Well, they clearly made the wrong choice to bring children into the world in the last eight
We hear about agile teams, in the form of product or feature teams. However, too many managers still work independently. That’s a problem when the teams have organizational problems a single manager can’t solve. Instead of managers working alone, what if we had teams of managers? A client, Bob, had that very problem. He said,
Do you have any idea how long it takes you to make decisions? Or, to clear impediments? Or to report to your team or your boss about your action items? Each of those items is a deliverable. That means we might be able to measure the cycle time for each of these deliverables. Normally, we
One of my colleagues, Al, private-messaged me. “I’m so much more effective now that we’re remote. I get a ton more work done. I’m so much happier. I love where the product is going. How can I do more of this?” Al feels productive and engaged. Why does he feel this way? When I spoke
I had a blast talking about the agile mindset with Elise Stevens. See Podcast #179: Future-Proof Your Career – Johanna Rothman – Embracing the agile mindset. We discussed a variety of agile topics: What an agile mindset is Why “agile” is more than sprints How we can use attraction to change And more I hope
When Mark Kilby and I wrote From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams, we suggested teams add a text backchannel. Even when the backchannel is asynchronous, the information in it increases the value of all the team’s communication. The backchannel helps everyone see all the information. That helps all the team’s communication. Some of my
I have finally opened my first writing workshop, Writing Workshop 1: Free Your Inner Writer again. It took me a while to figure out how to organize the workshop so everyone (including me) could succeed. I’m planning to offer the workshop once a quarter. See Q4 2020 Writing Workshop 1 for more details. This workshop
Several of my clients want to use some sort of maturity assessment for their agile transformations. Often, the maturity levels demand adherence to specific practices or processes. Some of those practices and processes work for my clients now. (I’m not so sure about others.) As my clients evolve, will what they do now continue to
Three Ideas to Boost Your Productivity Several Pragmatic Manager subscribers have asked me about how to build and maintain their productivity. They say they have these problems: The longer they work apart from other people, the less they have the “peer pressure” of a collaborative schedule. They find it hard to maintain focus for a long time.