© 2000 Johanna Rothman “We’re repeatable. We consistently and repeatably do the same stupid things over and over again.” – senior test engineer Process improvement experts emphasize the importance of having a repeatable process. I’ve found that the term “repeatable” is often misused to mean “not entirely chaotic.” In process improvement terminology, “repeatable” means that […]
© 2000 Johanna Rothman A recent client, Bob, asked me to assess their major project. “Johanna, it’s so late, I don’t know what to do. If we don’t get it out on time, we’ll miss the market window. I can’t believe any of the estimates I get anymore, the project manager hasn’t met a single
©2000 Johanna Rothman Many of us are in “constant hiring” mode–continually receiving resumes, interviewing people, and deciding on whether to hire various candidates. Are you asking questions that get you informative answers about your candidates? There are many potential kinds of interview questions and situations: closed, open, hypothetical, meta questions, auditions, and rhetorical questions are
©2000 Johanna Rothman “I can’t make a decision today to save my life.” Susan, VP Engineering “Everything I touch today turns into garbage.” Joe, VP Engineering “I just want to hurt everyone when I can’t get anything done. Why should they have a good day, when I’m having a lousy day?” Cyril, CEO
© 1999 Johanna Rothman To ensure a successful product in the marketplace, an organization must bring all the company’s functions together: Product development and testing, marketing, training, customer support, sales, etc. The manager who organizes and schedules the intra-company tasks is frequently called the program manager. One of my clients refers to program management as
©1999 Johanna Rothman Effectively using your influence is an art, the art of getting other people to do the things you want them to — and willingly. Many of us have opportunities to practice using our influence when we have responsibility for results, but not specific managerial authority. To be effective in these collaborative/consensus situations,
©1999 Johanna Rothman “With man’s great ability to think, reason, and compute, we can now pinpoint most of our current problems. The trouble is that we can’t solve them.” I walked in, and put my briefcase down. I fished out my dress shoes, and had one sneaker off before Ted barged in. “JR, I can’t
©1999 Johanna Rothman “Ship it!” Do you say these words with a feeling of pride? Or a feeling of desperation? For any project, the big question is “when will the project be ready to ship?” When is the project complete? You can’t know when the project is ready, unless you know what “complete” means. I
©1999 Johanna Rothman “The Answer to the Great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42” –. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Some people think there’s a specific answer to questions such as: “What’s the correct staffing ratio for developers to testers in a software development organization?” “What’s the best project management
©1999 Johanna Rothman I just read an article by a well-known author. He claimed that your first project slip isn’t so bad; the third or fourth project slips are the bad ones. In my mind, red flags went up. I flipped the bozo bit on the author. I completely disagree with his conclusion. The first