This is Johanna Rothman’s September 2026 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. One of my trusted advisor clients, Gary, told me he was worried about how their organization used their LLMs. “I feel as if no one takes responsibility for their thoughts or their actions. They blindly trust
How often does your team conduct a retrospective? If you’re like most of my clients, not often enough. When I ask why the team doesn’t retrospect at least once every couple of weeks, these teams tell me many reasons: They don’t finish “enough” work often enough. (If you’re part of an “agile” team and you
The more work we put into backlogs, roadmaps, and the portfolio, the more product certainty we appear to have. But can we trust that product certainty? No. There’s the Aging problem. Then, there’s the fact that we can’t tell what the future will bring. Even if a team has a relatively low and consistent cycle
Maybe your team does have Ready criteria for their backlog. But they look at the backlog item, and they say, “Oh, this is way too big. We have no idea how to start.” That “no idea” often means the work is too large, unclear, or not based on a specific customer with a specific need.
Are you trying to change people’s minds? Data can help. But data is not enough. We all need stories to make that human connection. That’s the point of the podcast I recorded with Sam Taggart: Storytelling is Problem Solving. (That’s the link to the podcast for audio listening.) That page also has a link to
This is the November 2024 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.Is your “hybrid” team working? So far, most of my clients say, “No!” Managers think there’s not enough collaboration. Team members discover their meetings don’t work because the office is not sufficiently equipped with the
Each week for a little over a year, I’ve been recording a little podcast and video. It’s called “60 Seconds of Johanna’s Writing WIP.” I’m doing this as an experiment for two reasons: Market the writing before I publish it. (Yes, the “launch” is a form of marketing, but I’m also planning to experiment with
This is the August 2024 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Problems. They’re always there, just waiting to pop up and say, “Surprise! Gotcha!” I don’t mind new problems, but the sneaky problems, the ones that reappear after I thought I fixed them? I really
As a consultant, I create many kinds of information products: both writing and speaking. I use the ideas of experiments and finalization to decide what to ship and when. That allows me the most flexibility in my product development. However, too many organizations don’t differentiate between what they need to ship as experiments and when
Ever since I was on the Troubleshooting Agile podcast, I’ve followed Squirrel and Jeffrey. (I highly recommend their podcast.) Recently, Squirrel posted something fascinating on LinkedIn: Aim for a “single source of lies” about your business. That’s quite a provocative idea, especially when many of us persist in looking for a “single source of truth.”