I had a terrific time with Chris Williams on his Badass Agile podcast. We discussed the Modern Management Made Easy books. (Let me just say, I love the fact that I can now say I am a Badass. Hehehe.) We had a terrific discussion. Some of the topics we covered: Are managers born or made? […]
I had a terrific time with Scott Hanselman on his podcast, Hanselminutes. Listen to our conversation on Modern Management Made Easy with Johanna Rothman. I started listening to Scott’s podcast a couple of years ago. I regularly listen because he: Selects people I’ve never heard of before Organizes the interview in ways that clarify the
I had fun with Ian Gill on his Agility by Nature podcast: A Conversation with Johanna Rothman about the Modern Management Made Easy books. We laughed a lot. (Partly at me. I am the Queen of the Career-Limiting Conversation.) We spoke a lot about what managers can do in practice as opposed to theory. And
Do I advocate insubordination? Some of my Modern Management Made Easy technical reviewers wonder. And, when I looked at this definition of insubordination, I had to agree. However, when I read that definition, I don’t see any mutual problem-solving. I also don’t see any mutual purpose or respect. I don’t see how that form of
One of the familiar tensions in management is how you encourage or discourage people from bringing you problems. One of my clients had a favorite saying, “Don’t bring me problems. Bring me solutions.” I could see the problems that saying caused in the organization. He prevented people from bringing him problems until the problems were
I’m at AgileIndyConf today and tomorrow. Today, I’m leading a tutorial about Agile Project Management. Tomorrow is my keynote about Agile Management. And, that got me thinking about agile management, again. To be a great agile manager, you need to be a servant leader. Okay, you understand that part. To be a great servant leader,
You might have met a manager on a bad manager day. Equally as frustrating is when you work for a manager who has rules about problem solving. I once worked for a manager who proudly said to me, “Don’t bring me a problem without bringing me a solution.” I blinked once and said, “Why would
I’ve been working with several management teams who want me to train them or their project managers to take over the agile training. It’s not unreasonable from their perspective—it’s how they’ve transitioned to all the other process improvement approaches over the years. Except, none of the other process improvement approaches have been built on the