Do you subscribe to my Pragmatic Manager email newsletter? I’ve been writing a ton about remote work. I sent How to Manage by “Walking Around” When You’re Remote a few days ago. If remote topics interest you, join Mark Kilby, Jeff Payne, and me on a Coveros webinar about From Chaos to Successful Distributed Teams
I wrote Unearthing Your Project’s Delays a couple of years ago. I told the story of Cliff, a manager who wanted to understand why the projects were so late. I gave several talks about that article. One eagle-eyed fellow asked me this question, “How long was the time from T0 to T1?” I said, “Managers
As I complete the Modern Management Made Easy books, I realize I need to explain how much tolerance an organization has for experiments. The more clients I have, the more I realize most organizations have a sweet spot for how much they can tolerate experiments or bets. Each person has an affinity for more or
Several weeks ago, I posted my innovation principles, based on Modern Management Made Easy, book 3. I developed them because I was discovering the user journey through the book. I needed a way to link the ideas together. Of course, I also created principles for managing yourself (Book 1) and for leading and serving others
All companies appear to be grappling with their approach to diversity and inclusion in the organization. Many have appointed Chief Diversity Officers. However, when you appoint a Chief Anything Officer, you decline responsibility for that thing yourself. I’ve seen this in Quality, Excellence, you name it. When you name a Chief <something> Officer, you no
In a conversation about product quality, the product owner said, “If the testers found the problems faster, we would be done faster.” The tester said, “If the developers didn’t put so many problems in, we’d be done by now.” The developer said, “If you didn’t pressure me so much, I could have done a better
I encourage managers to delegate work. When managers insert themselves into the middle of the work, these problems occur: Managers slow the team down. Managers prevent people from learning. Managers don’t do their management work. That environment creates problems for everyone. Then I read Elisabeth Hendrickson’s original Delegation is Overrated. (She has removed the original
We’ve all heard of big organizations where the top management said, “No need to ever be back in the office. Work from home, as long as you want.” And, the Wall Street Journal has this article, Business Travel Won’t Be Taking Off Soon Amid Coronavirus (you might need to subscribe to see the article). (I
Every organization has policies of some sort. The smaller the organization, the fewer policies you might have. And, the larger the organization, the more policies you might think you need. I keep encountering policies that prevent people from delivering the outcomes the organization wants. Worse, the policies destroy trust. Why have policies anyway? We often
In the agile and lean communities, we talk a lot about transparency. This image is the transparency principle we used in From Chaos to Distributed Agile Teams. I see the most product and program success when the various teams create transparency between them, the middle of the continuum. That’s the full-product transparency. I see many