In Hiring for an Agile Team: Who Do You Need?, I asked you to consider the kinds of people you were looking for. Yes, you might need developers or testers or BAs or writers. And, I suggested you think about T-shaped people, those folks who could do whatever it takes to move a feature forward. […]
This is the start of a 5-part series: Hiring for an agile team. Let’s assume you are trying to hire for your agile team. Let’s assume you are in a location where you have candidates to recruit, that there are people looking for jobs in your area. I’ll cover how to hire feature teams elsewhere
I just read Scott Berkun’s The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work. For me, it was a mixed read. Yes, you can make a totally distributed team work. What you need to do: Make all of the work visible Keep everyone focused on one project at a time Keep all of the
I was in the midst of an assessment when the CIO came to me, and shut the door. “I have a serious question for you.” I nodded for him to continue. I put aside my papers to show him I was providing him my undivided attention. “I’m thinking of offshoring all the testers. What do
I just read Social Media is Paralyzing HR. (Hat tip to John Sumser, @JohnSumser who tweeted it.) I sympathize with Paul, who is sympathizing with HR. Let me tell you what I see in too many small to medium size companies: One lonely HR person who is trying to do: All the recruiting for all
One of the top posts on this site is Interview Questions for Project Managers. I bet some of you are interviewing for program managers, too. Here’s a little guidance for how to interview for those jobs. A program manager is a strategic job. Remember, a program is a collection of projects where the business value
Are you going to Agile 2013? If you are, maybe these tips will help you. Consider using the schedule planner app to remind you of the sessions you thought you wanted to attend. However, don’t be bound to those sessions. You might meet someone in the hall, or at a meal, have a conversation, and
Creating Change That Lasts Do you want to make a change that lasts, a change that sustains itself over time? Maybe a change such as transitioning to agile? Some of you have made agile work for one team, and are wondering how to make it work for larger programs. Some of you might want to
A few weeks ago, Dave Prior interviewed me for Projects at Work. He posted that interview as a podcast. Yes, registration is required. We spoke about Personal Kanban, my process for getting my work to done, how I carve out time for intellectual work, how I protect that time, how I iterate on my work,
My most recent column on projectmanagement.com, Using Release Trains to Get on Track is up. It’s another one of those columns that addresses the question, “What do you do in a program with agile and non-agile projects?” I hope you enjoy it.