I’m a member of a panel Jul 23 for the Boston Agile Bazaar meeting, and am attempting to articulate my two-minute position statement to the question: How would you characterize your approach to handling people problems on agile teams? My problem is that I don’t do anything any differently for agile or non-agile teams. I […]
Orac’s post, Jon Stewart on the Detroit bailout, points to Stewart’s perspective on the bailout. (Watch the video; it’s hilarious.) Some paraphrases and quotes from Stewart: ‘Congress… doesn’t know what the financial industry does and doesn’t want to look stupid.’ (paraphrase of Stewart) “The auto industry has a product that’s tangible and easy to complain
I can’t tell if this is a compliment or not, but David Anderson is already disappointed with the Agile 2009 program. Since we haven’t even opened the submission system yet, never mind chosen the program, I’m surprised. What David is reacting to is my organization of the program committee. (The potential compliment is that David
So you didn’t get the promotion. Before you look for a new job, ask why. It’s possible you’re missing something critical for that role. Many years ago, I was working as a “senior member of the technical staff.” I was a tester, had coordinated beta tests, much of the testing work for the last couple
When I teach coaching or feedback skills, I teach them in the context of work. At work, as long as the feedback is about the work, or the work relationships, or it’s a question of safety, feedback is appropriate. Coaching, as long as it’s about work behavior is appropriate. But a funny thing happened to
In Knowledge Management Needs to be Agile, Too, I said If you put people in competition with each other *in any way*, they will have dis-incentives to share their knowledge. John, in his comment on that post, said it seemed intuitive, but was having trouble articulating why. I’m here to help 🙂 Some of my
One of the big problems in organizations is how to fund projects. ROI does not work. I learned how to lie with ROI back in 1988—I can make the numbers be anything you want. But if you don’t have ROI, how do you know what projects to fund? One set of projects is the set
I was shopping today, taking advantage of the summer sales. One of my favorite retailers offers petite sizes online, but almost nothing in the store. I go to the store to try the clothes on and then decide what to order online. I had a number of blice (blouses to those of you who are
I was talking with a new manager recently, and she was explaining what she had to tell a new employee (a co-op, but an employee). “I told him he had to be here by 9am every day he works. He can eat lunch from 12 to 1, and then he should be back at his
At SD earlier this week, I led a tutorial about coaching. Imagine my surprise when I asked people why they were there, and some of them said, “I have a person who’s not doing so well. I need to coach them.” Uh, no. You need to give that person feedback. Feedback is information about the