Do you have projects where you can’t predict an end date? These tend to be a job search, a change project, and with a tip of the hat to Cesar Abeid, your life. I like to call these “emergent” projects. You might prefer to call them “adaptable” projects, but to me, every project has to […]
This post is continued from Cost, Value & Investment: How Much Will This Project Cost, Part 1 We’ve established that you need to know how much this project will cost. I’m assuming you have more than a small project. If you have to estimate a project, please read the series starting at Estimating the Unknown:
I’ve said before that you cannot use capacity planning for the project portfolio. I also said that managers often want to know how much the project will cost. Why? Because businesses have to manage costs. No one can have runaway projects. That is fair. If you use an agile or incremental approach to your projects,
I sent a Pragmatic Manager email last week, How to Avoid Three Big Estimation Traps. If you subscribed, you’d have seen it already. (That was a not-so-subtle hint to subscribe 🙂 If you’re not sure of the value of being on yet-another-email list, browse the back issues. You can see I’m consistent. Not about the
If you’ve been paying attention to agile at all, you’ve heard these terms: pairing and swarming. But what do they mean? What’s the difference? When you pair, two people work together to finish a piece of work. Traditionally, two developers paired. The “driver” wrote the piece of work. The other person, the “navigator,” observed the
Have you seen Esther Schindler’s great article yet? Creating High-Performance Virtual Teams of Freelancers and Contractors. Here’s the blurb: Plenty has been written about telecommuting for employees: how to encourage productivity, build a sense of “we’re all in this together,” and the logistics (such as tools and business processes) that streamline a telework lifestyle. But
One of my clients was having trouble with estimating work they had never done before, so I wrote an article explaining spikes. That article is up on agileconnection: Need to Learn More about the Work You’re Doing? Spike It! It was a little serendipity; I taught an estimation workshop right after I explained how to
I am happy to announce that Manage Your Job Search is available on all platforms: electronic and print. And, you get the presents! For one week, I am running a series of special conference calls to promote the book. Take a look at my celebration page. I also have special pricing on Hiring Geeks That
I just finished the electronic version of Manage Your Job Search, integrating my comments from my beta reviewers. I’m getting the book ready for print and audio now. One of my realizations is that a job search is an emergent project. As much as you might want to, you cannot predict an end date. Other
I had a great conversation last week with someone taking a leadership course. (Not one of my courses. His instructor wouldn’t talk to him!! He’d seen one of my posts and emailed me. Of course I talked with him.) He was confused by the word “Handoff.” He thought it meant that people hadn’t done their