Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
I’ve spoken professionally at conferences for 25 years. I enjoy it. And, several people—all men, so far—have suggested I should “make room” for other voices. To me, that’s a solution in search of a problem. I ask them what problems they want to solve. They want speakers who are: More diverse in gender More diverse …
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My agile transformation clients struggle with this big question: How do we effectively reward managers? The more the organization wants or needs an agile transformation, the less the current reward structure works. How do you incent the managers? What makes sense for management compensation? Cindy, a director in a 500-person IT organization struggles with this—for …
Continue reading “Management Rewards: Doing Work vs Creating an Environment”
Some organizations find OKRs help them create superior objectives and achieve some of them. (OKRs are Objectives and Key Results.) The idea is that every quarter you use the company purpose to create audacious Objectives. Each objective then has 3-5 Key Results so you can measure how well you do. You’re not supposed to achieve …
Do you subscribe to my Pragmatic Manager email newsletter? I’ve been writing a ton about remote work. I sent How to Manage by “Walking Around” When You’re Remote a few days ago. If remote topics interest you, join Mark Kilby, Jeff Payne, and me on a Coveros webinar about From Chaos to Successful Distributed Teams …
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