“Cindy, I need to add three more people to your team.” Patrick, the CTO, leaned in the doorway. He turned, about to walk away. “Wait a sec. We need to discuss this. You don’t get to drop that bombshell and leave. Why do you want me to hire more people?” Cindy looked concerned. “No, I […]
“James, I need to talk to you about Bill.” Susanne shut the door and sat down in the visitor chair. “OK, what’s up?” James stopped typing at his computer. He walked to his visitor table and sat down. “I just walked by Bill’s office. He’s leaning back in his chair. I could swear he’s snoring!”
“George is on his offshoring rampage again,” Cindy said as she slumped down in Ted’s visitor chair. Ted saved his document and turned around. “Oh? Want to tell me about it?” “I need more testers for the feature teams we’re starting, right? I told him. I showed him the project portfolio and the projects we
Barry bustled into Sam’s office. “Hey Sam, I need to see how these teams are doing— compared to each other. How do you compare teams?” “I don’t compare teams,” said Sam. “Why are you trying to compare teams?” “So I can tell who’s being more productive and who’s slacking off,” Barry replied. “But I thought
Sally, the project manager, strode confidently into her meeting with John, the CIO. She’d reviewed the roadmap with the product owner and had discussed the risks with the project team. She was sure, based on the first few iterations, that the project was off to a good start. Sure, she knew that projects rarely stayed
One problem when you have a program with agile projects and non-agile projects is how to marry the two parts. The agile projects deliver value every couple of weeks. The non-agile projects? Well, it’s possible they don’t deliver value for months to years. In Managing Programs with Agile and Traditional Projects, I suggested that you
“Hey, Johnny, what’s Sheryl doing? She’s been in meetings the last week. She’s only come out for our one-on-ones. I’ve been trying to catch her. I need to ask her some questions about how to give feedback to Cathy about this problem.” Terry pointed to his architecture picture. “I know this architecture is not going
“Sally, I need you to stop testing on this project and move over to Dan’s project.” “Are you serious, Ben? I just got here a month ago. I just started to learn what’s going on. I finally have the trust of the team. I haven’t worked with these guys before. I found a nice, juicy
Josiah, the VP of engineering, called his directors meeting to order. “First on our agenda is my plan for the reorganization of our department,” he said. The directors looked at each other, puzzled. “I’ve noticed that several of the project teams are having trouble working together, so I’ve decided that we need a reorganization back
We’ve all read a lot about agile software development—the various flavors and methods sprouting up to tackle new issues in requirements, architecture, design, coding, and testing. But it’s rare to hear real, tangible, objective lessons based on the experiences of those who have tried some form of agile development and failed. Get ready to take