Esther’s here with me this week. We’re revamping our book based on early feedback from our reviewers. We’re focusing on the core skills of managers. Of course, prioritization is in the book. In addition, we’re addressing how to speak the language of the business (to get things done through others), how to give feedback, one-on-ones, […]
I’m supposed to be on the other coast right now. But since I start from Boston, and this Nor’easter has taken over, I’m going nowhere fast. When I planned the trip and the client work, I’d allowed about a half-day of slack in the travel. That’s normally enough. Not this time 🙂 When you
At a recent presentation, (Managing the Management Balancing Act) I discussed the problems of multi-tasking. I received this feedback: Johanna, I have to say that I think you are off the path in terms of “multiple projects.” 1) Organizations just don’t work this way – it isn’t cost-effective. 2) Today’s emerging workforce (20-30) were
Last week, one of the mailing lists I’m on discussed the glass ceiling. Some participants doubted the glass ceiling exists — that it may be more of a reaction on the part of the person perceiving the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is real. Sometimes, it’s discrimination against people who aren’t developers (which is
Hal posted his take on creating faster cheaper projects. (See Creating Faster Cheaper Projects.) I see that I did not make my assumptions clear in my original post. Hal had three problems (at least!) with my post: Fewer people increase the length of the project. The longer the project, the more the requirements will change
Performing projects faster and cheaper seems to be the holy grail for most organizations. Here’s the secret: If you really want to perform projects faster and/or cheaper, start them earlier. When you start projects early, you can assign fewer people, so the costs start off lower. When you start the project early, you can
In the last few weeks, I’ve received several questions about how to assess the productivity and effectiveness of testers. I’m concerned about this, because a tester’s effectiveness doesn’t just depend on the quality of the tester’s work, it depends on the quality of the work product the tester tests (as well as the schedule
Last week at the AYE conference, Naomi Karten and I facilitated a writing workshop. We ask people to write for five minutes and then for ten minutes. We find that people who are stuck on their writing make significant progress in five or ten minutes. However, we need to set our expectations low — very
Ron, Laurent, Dale, Willem, Esther and I are all together at AYE – we’re having a blogging BOF. We discussed things that stood out for us at the AYE conference: facilitating a panel, the presentation workshop, working with Jean McLendon, how difficult electronic room keys are to keep track of… Laurent: thanks to Johanna for
I’m at the AYE conference this week, and a bunch of fellow bloggers are here: Laurent Bossavit, Esther Derby, Steve Smith, Ron Pihlgren, Willem van den Ende, Dale Emery. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. Laurent suggested a blogging BOF (Birds of a Feather), so if we’re not too exhausted, we’ll sit around one of