“Hey, George, I want to talk to you about training for my group,” Andrea said. “Don’t start with that again,” George said. “I know you have a group of developers who need training. Two years ago, when you ran testing, you had a group of testers who needed training. Why do all your groups need […]
I caught up with Fred, a friend of longstanding, just before what I thought would be his normal two- to three-week vacation in August. “Where are you going this year, Fred? Are you bicycling or white water rafting? Or something else exciting? I can’t wait to live vicariously through you again!” “I’m not going anywhere
“Everyone is worth saving. Everyone is worth saving.” Jimmy was muttering under his breath as he walked into my office. “Hi, Steve. I’m here for our one-on-one. I have a real problem.” “OK, let’s hear it.” “Frieda is a problem in my group.” “Jimmy, we have discussed Frieda before. I thought you were going to
One of the biggest management myths is, “I must treat everyone the same way.” In our organizations, we have career ladders that try to fit us into “ticky-tacky” boxes for promotion, assume that everyone brainstorms the same way, and that everyone likes the same kind of projects. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone
How many times have you seen this in your projects: You need something specific done such as a new database, or a specific user interface designed, or you need a release engineer, or a user interface designer, or a part of the system tested and the normal person who does that work is not available?
A manager took me aside at a recent engagement. “You know, Johanna, there’s something I just don’t understand about this agile thing. It sure doesn’t look like everyone is being used at 100 percent.” “And what if they aren’t being used at 100 percent? Is that a problem for you?” “Heck, yes. I’m paying their
© 2003 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Crosstalk, Dec 2003. This article is the outgrowth of my original talk/article, Successful Engineering Management: 7 Lessons Learned Successful managers realize that they need to balance the needs of the business, the employees, and the work environment to be effective. In this article, the author
by Johanna Rothman. © 1999 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the