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 »
How to Say, “I Don’t Know” and Keep Your Job (If you don’t realize why you’re receiving this email, I discovered a problem with my newsletter settings. Feel free to unsubscribe. The link is at the bottom of the email.) How easy is it for you to say, “I don’t know,” or “I need help?” …
I wrote a number of posts and newsletters over the past few weeks to help you see alternatives in this age of uncertainty. I hope you use these ideas to generate other ideas or ask more questions and create more experiments. The posts on this blog: 7 Tool Tips for Your Newly Distributed or Remote …
Collection of My Rapidly Remote and Managing in Uncertainty Writing Read More »
You probably went from the office to remote so fast, you’re still recovering from the whiplash of working from home. I found the biggest change when I started to work remotely was how meetings changed. I’ve learned these tips over the years. You might find them helpful. Tip 1: Start With Cameras On When we …
Many organizations heeded the COVID-19 warnings and sent people home to work as remote teams. The managers want to proceed as if the people can work from home and have “business as usual.” They’ve made these requests to their staff: Work at home, as if you were at the office. (Keep the same hours and …
Does your team have to keep two sets of “books”? You have an agile roadmap to see where you’re headed. You have a smallish backlog of the near/upcoming work. You’re delivering on a frequent basis. And, someone on your team keeps a Gantt chart because a manager wants to see the team’s progress in a …
I published another Pragmatic Manager this week, Time for a Decision. It’s about program management decisions, and collaborating across the organization. Do you receive my Pragmatic Manager emails? If you think you are on my list, but are not receiving my emails, let me know. Some of you long-time subscribers are not receiving my emails …
Back when I was a manager inside organizations, I had many days that looked like this: Meetings at 9am, 10am, 11am. Working meeting through lunch (noon-1pm) Meetings at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm. I finally got a chance to check my email at 4pm. That’s when I discovered the world had blown up earlier in the day! …
I had an email conversation with a colleague about when you let people fail versus when you rescue them—how you nurture leadership. The context is with people who are new to management, or new to a particular piece of work in a project. If you’re agile, I say you pair these people and be done …
Steve Smith challenged me in a comment to the cowardly layoff/no feedback posting: “What would you have done if you were the manager who layed off these people?” I’ve written about layoffs in a previous Software Development column, but let me address the specific problem Steve described: The manager needs the paycheck. The manager (or …
Making Difficult Decisions: Choosing When to Lay Yourself Off Read More »