Pragmatic Manager Email Posted
In July, I sent out the Pragmatic Manager email newsletter: 90% Done is Not Almost Done. I have finally posted it. Enjoy!
MPD, schedule games
schedule games
MPD, schedule games, Stickyminds columns
Stickyminds Column Posted: Schedule Games and the Portfolio
My most recent Stickyminds column is up: Are Your Pants on Fire, or Do You Suffer from Split Focus?. There’s also a podcast on that page. You can leave comments there or here.
MPD, schedule games, Stickyminds columns
Schedule Game column is up
My Eliminating the 90% Done Schedule Game Stickyminds column is up. Enjoy! For those of you who remember the schedule game series from a few years ago, yes, this is one of the games. I added several more and wrote more in Manage It!.
MPD, schedule games, Stickyminds columns
Codependent Schedule Games Posted
My Stickyminds column, Codependent Schedule Games is up. Enjoy!
MPD, schedule games
Schedule Game #11: The Schedule Tool is Always Right
You’ve probably gathered by now that I’m not enamored of project scheduling tools. And since I most often do rolling wave planning, I don’t normally need a scheduling tool. But, here’s another true story. I was coaching a PM in an organization where the execs only understood the waterfall lifecycle. They thought iterating was a
MPD, schedule games
Schedule Game #10: We’ll Know Where We Are When We Get There
One of my clients claimed he had ADHD. He had trouble keeping projects focused on one goal. I’ve known him for a while, and he didn’t have this problem when he was a project manager. Nope, he made sure that each project he managed had a goal, and beware any senior manager who wanted to
MPD, schedule games
Schedule Game #9: Schedule == Commitment
You and I know that the schedule is an estimate. The project schedule is your best guess about when the project team will reach which milestones, and when the project may complete. But a schedule is not a prediction; it is a guess. So when I meet senior managers who want a project team
MPD, schedule games
Schedule Game #8: Pants on Fire
You’re a project manager. Your project is proceeding fairly well. You’ve had a few bumps, but you’re making progress. You come into work one day, and there’s a message to meet with the Big Cheese. Big Cheese says, “Stop working on that project. Start on this one!” Not only does this happen once, it
MPD, schedule games
Schedule Game #7: Schedule Dream Time or Happy Date
Sometimes, I work with organizations where there’s an implicit agreement not to discuss the schedule. I’ve seen this schedule game in two flavors: the first is Dream Time, where the project team and management believe the schedule, especially if it’s in a scheduling tool with lots of graphs and different colored lines. The other is
implement by feature, MPD, schedule games
Schedule Game #6: Sweep Under the Rug
A few years ago, I received a call to help out a project in trouble. Unsurprisingly, when I was reviewing what had been done and what still left to do, the PM explained there were many half-implemented features. (The team had not been implementing by feature, but instead by architecture. Each architecture group had