Before the pandemic, Jenny, the VP of Engineering, insisted that the engineering staff needed to work in the Boston area. She expected that people would mostly work in the office, and they did. However, during the pandemic, Jenny changed her mind. She said that as long as teams had sufficient hours of overlap, she didn’t …
Remote Work: Ways to Think About “Fair” Compensation and Benefits Read More »
We often think that finishing a story from the backlog is “just” tactical. However, the more often we deliver in short feedback loops, the more often we can make strategic decisions. Finishing a story creates a new decision point, for both the product and the corporate strategy. The more often we iterate strategically, the more …
Use Deliveries to Offer New Decision Points for Tactics and Strategy Read More »
Writers have a problem product development teams don’t have: Imposter Syndrome. That’s when you think you’re a fraud. Even though you have experience and expertise. Fear drives Imposter Syndrome. Too often, writers let the fear win. You don’t have to succumb to that fear—you can fool that fear with writing. The more you write and …
Writing Secret 7: Write to Fool Your Imposter Syndrome Read More »
Do you want to write and publish more? If so, take a look at the Write Stuff 2022 story bundle. Nine books plus one class equals ten opportunities to raise your writing and publishing abilities to the next level. My brand new book, Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer is a part of this bundle. In …
Write and Publish More with the May 2022 Write Stuff Writing Bundle Read More »
Dan, a VP, knows he needs more people to get the work done. Suzanne, one of the directors, starts to hire and realizes she has several problems. First, their salary bands are too low—candidates want more money. In addition, the people want to collaborate more than the existing people seem to. She meets with Dan …
Throughput: Why Salary Costs Matter Less Than You Think They Do Read More »
The Acme Corp senior leadership team is thrilled that they can bring people back to the office. That team decided that everyone would be back in the office on Mondays and Thursdays. Why Mondays and Thursdays? The senior leaders could make those days work with their schedules. They rolled this decision out to the rest …
Three Possibilities to Move from Power Over to Power With Read More »
Dan, a Vice President, worries that his teams work more as individuals than as teams. He’s a physically active guy and decided that teams can choose from these activities: a zip line course, a hike up and down a local mountain, or an escape room. But when he suggested these ideas to one of his …
Leadership Tip #19: How “Team Building” Activities Help and Hurt People and Teams Read More »
A colleague unfamiliar with lifecycles or agility asked, “How can we use sprints in this approach?” and pointed to a phase-gate approach with documentation deliverables after each phase. It looked just like the serial lifecycle in the image on the left. (That’s because a finance person drew the lifecycle.) I said, “You can’t use ‘sprints.’ …
How and When to Use Timeboxes, Iterations, and Sprints to be Most Effective Read More »
Technology gets old. While we know that intellectually, we might not know it as it pertains to us. Here’s a story about how technology changes one day at a time and everything is okay—until it’s not. (Don’t want the long sad story? Go to Here’s What You Missed.) A Short History of My Site I …
Technology Gets Old One Day at a Time: Broken Blog Feeds and What You Missed Read More »
If this post works, I’ll send a longer post with the too-sad, too-long story of broken feeds and missing emails. But this post needs to work first. Thanks for your patience.