Janice strode down the hall and made a sharp right at a cubicle decorated with dragons. “Hey, Steve, got a minute? I need your help with a problem.” “Janice, the last time you asked me for my help, I got stuck in that installation mess. I appreciate being one of your team leads, but I […]
by, JB Rainsberger and Johanna Rothman, © 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse
A cynical senior manager said, “It feels as if I’m stuck between the traditionalists and the agilistas. We can’t use phase-gate anymore, because it’s not ‘agile’ enough. And the last time, when that multisite project tried Scrum, they failed miserably. Isn’t there a right approach to our projects?” A project doesn’t have to use just
I recently spoke with a recruiter new to the high tech field. “So many of these people have suspect experience on their resumes. They’ve been laid off, and then out of work for several years. I can’t believe they would be good for our organization.” If you’ve worked anywhere since 1999, you know some “failures”—people
I have a colleague—a development manager—who blogs about once every week or two, speaks at one or two conferences each year, and gives local talks to professional groups in his area. He says candidates send him email asking for a job. Not all those candidates are reasonable candidates for his open positions, but many are.
Imagine this scenario: Your organization has moved to cross-functional, project-based teams, and you, once a developer, are now a project manager. You understand how to make development work, but testing is like a black box. Until now, you thought testing was something that other people—those in the testing group—did. Now you’re responsible for the testers’
As candidate evaluations go, you gotta hand it to the 2008 presidential candidates. They are “interviewing” for the job for longer than the apprentices on the TV show. I was watching the news recently about polling results of the 2008 presidential election. I wasn’t surprised at the top few qualifications: experience, competence, values, and character.
Imagine you’re working on or managing a project. You’re dealing with risks and making technical decisions–pretty much humming along. The project isn’t easy, but you’re making progress. One day, you arrive at work and your boss says, “Stop working on that project. Work on this one instead.” You do. A week later, the same thing
I was recently talking with an executive recruiter. “I’ve been recruiting managers for years, but in the last couple of years, it seems more tricky. My clients don’t exactly know what they want, and it seems as if everyone’s had an ‘untraditional’ career path. What’s going on?” Managers are people too—so why is recruiting managers
Imagine you’re a project manager. You talk to your technical lead and ask how far along the team is. “Oh, we’re about 90 percent done,” he says. If you’re like most project managers, your heart sinks. You’ve been here before. Ninety percent done means the other 90 percent is left to do. But what can