Up until now, when thinking about risks, I defaulted to the risks in the project pyramid. That’s because each project offers different value over the product’s lifetime. (See Product Roles, Part 4: Product Orientation and the Role of Projects for images of why we want ever-increasing product value, but why we might space the projects […]
Many nonfiction writers start books with outlines. I’m not big on outlines because they shortcut the writer’s thinking. (Nonfiction writers think and learn as they write.) However, some writers go off on tangents without outlines. Or, some writers (raises hand) are prone to put everything she ever learned about this topic into one book. Either
I am thrilled to announce a book birthday: Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit. People often ask me how long it takes me to write a book. Every book takes the time it takes. But this one took much longer than I expected. Here’s the story of the consulting book. In the
Brandon, a senior leader, asked, “What is all this hype about agile frameworks and models and practices? Do I really need all that stuff?” I shook my head and grinned. “Nope. Instead, practice this: make change easy, so you can learn from it. That allows you to change again and faster. Especially for management.” “That’s
When I published Writing Secret 9: Keep Your Writing Clean As You Write, the feedback surprised me. Many of my fellow nonfiction writers write a lot before they get internal feedback. That might be right for them. It’s not right for me. I finally understood why I write differently. I think of each iteration as
Sherry, a middle manager in a relatively small organization, said, “We can’t plan for an entire quarter at a time. Our managers need to change what they want more often than that. But I’d like to plan for a quarter at a time and I really don’t want to ask people to multitask. What do
Some writers suggest you write sloppy, “vomiting” the words onto the page. They think all writers need to start with “shitty first drafts.” But sloppy writing means you need several drafts to clean up the sloppiness. To me, that’s like waiting until the end of coding to write and run any tests at all. (Been
In preparation for a recent consulting engagement, the client, Tim, said, “I want you to track meeting attendance. If people don’t come to your meetings, I want to know why.” Tim was worried about the cultural changes we needed to discuss for the client’s ability to be more effective. Tim had good reasons to worry
One of the themes that runs through the Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit is: “Invite people to your newsletter.” Why? Because those people gave you permission to market to them. Your subscribers don’t have to like everything you write—as long as they like most of what you write. Or that you
Every minute, it seems as if someone is talking about how great ChatGPT is. It’s going to revolutionize the world! I agree— I am sure AI will revolutionize the world. At some point. But I think it’s going to remove all those busy-work jobs, not the jobs where we, as humans, offer value. Here’s a