Here’s a common scenario I was discussing with a colleague last night: They’re at the end of a project. They used some combination of a serial lifecycle, becoming more incremental as they proceed through the project. But they still have a ton of open defects, and a few not-quite-finished features. My colleague was complaining about […]
In one of the comments, for When is a Scrum Master (or a PM) Not?, Craig Brown said Process, process, process. What about people? At the end of the day the process is just one of several enabers (alongside culture, technology and tools, etc.) Won’t an experienced and talented team just deliver regardless of the
Both David Maister, in Compensation Systems, and George Dinwiddie, in Agile Compensation, have useful comments about compensation systems. There’s something implicit in both pieces, that the criteria to move from position to position (as well as from one salary to another) have to be explicit. For years, I called this expertise criteria. You develop expertise
Bob Sutton has an intriguing post, A Surprising Study of Infant Mortality Rates: Evidence-Based Management Meets Evidence Medicine. One of the surprising conclusions: One kind of collaboration was linked to higher mortality rates. When front-line employees became more involved in unit governance — doing things like being involved in decisions about who was hired and
Dave Liebreich sent me this email: I’m working with the new hire in our group, bringing him up to speed on our stuff. He noticed that I brought in my copy of “Manage It!”, and asked if it was to help me manage him. [pause for laughter] Never work for someone who refers to you
I’ve been busy the last few weeks (as you can tell by the paucity of posts :-). I’ve been working with project managers, Scrum Masters, and technical leads who have been thrust into the role of Scrum Master. Here are some examples of the problems these nice folks have had: “When I want to use
Adam, from Write That Down, likes Manage it!. Here’s what he has to say: There is a great book called Manage It!, by Johanna Rothman. She does not disappoint, and really gets into the nitty gritty details about managing projects. While this is billed as a “project management” effort, it really does apply to product
Read Eric Sink’s Exception Handling in Running a Business. He says: In entrepreneurship, there is no substitute for good judgment. I would modify that to “In management, there is no substitute for good judgment.”
I have a new column posted at Stickyminds: What Project Managers Need To Know About Testing. Also, check out the podcast related to the article.