Do you listen to Tom Cagley’s SPaMCAST? (Software Process and Measurement CAST). Tom has interviewed me several times before. This time, in SPaMCAST 635 – Practical Ways to Manage, A Conversation with Johanna Rothman, we discuss the Modern Management Made Easy books. As always, we had a fun, free-ranging conversation. Enjoy!
When I think about agile approaches to work, I think about how fast we can change and the cost of those changes. We can change the next decisions about the work because we finish the current work and release it. Multiple deliverables allow us to change what we do and what we plan next. That’s
Jeffrey, Squirrel, and I continued our conversation on the Troubleshooting Agile Podcast, with Part 2. We addressed more of the Modern Management Made Easy principles. Specifically, we discussed the ideas of empathy and value-based integrity. We had a great discussion about several of the principles in the Modern Management Made Easy books: Empathy Value-based integrity
You’re a middle or senior manager in an organization trying to hold on in these crazy times. And you just discovered you’re shipping the wrong version of the product. (Or your product doesn’t work or it has some kind of horrible defect.) Your customers are angry. Your employees are running around, trying to fix the
I had a great time with Jeff and Squirrel on their podcast, Troubleshooting Agile. They focus on what our conversations can tell us about ourselves. We spoke about the Modern Management Made Easy books in Johanna Rothman on Modern Management Part 1. Here’s a highlight idea from the podcast: a transition to management is a
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