Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
One of my colleagues, Al, private-messaged me. “I’m so much more effective now that we’re remote. I get a ton more work done. I’m so much happier. I love where the product is going. How can I do more of this?” Al feels productive and engaged. Why does he feel this way? When I spoke …
When Mark Kilby and I wrote From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams, we suggested teams add a text backchannel. Even when the backchannel is asynchronous, the information in it increases the value of all the team’s communication. The backchannel helps everyone see all the information. That helps all the team’s communication. Some of my …
Continue reading “Backchannel Discussions Might Create Serendipity”
Do you subscribe to my Pragmatic Manager email newsletter? I’ve been writing a ton about remote work. I sent How to Manage by “Walking Around” When You’re Remote a few days ago. If remote topics interest you, join Mark Kilby, Jeff Payne, and me on a Coveros webinar about From Chaos to Successful Distributed Teams …
Continue reading “Remote Management by Walking Around Pragmatic Manager Posted”
We’ve all heard of big organizations where the top management said, “No need to ever be back in the office. Work from home, as long as you want.” And, the Wall Street Journal has this article, Business Travel Won’t Be Taking Off Soon Amid Coronavirus (you might need to subscribe to see the article). (I …
In the agile and lean communities, we talk a lot about transparency. This image is the transparency principle we used in From Chaos to Distributed Agile Teams. I see the most product and program success when the various teams create transparency between them, the middle of the continuum. That’s the full-product transparency. I see many …
As we move to more remote work, especially in these pandemic times, how do we integrate people so they can succeed? See Hiring Geeks That Fit for all the new employee checklists and how to use them. (Want to preview the checklists and templates? Download the HiringGeeksThatFitTemplates for yourself.) I updated the checklists with a …
I’ve had the pleasure—and displeasure—of many remote meetings over the past few weeks. The difficult meetings had a common root cause: the meeting leaders attempted to do a direct transfer of how they lead an in-person meeting to remote/WFH meetings. When that occurs, they miss the ability to optimize on our separation by choosing how …
I’ve worked with several managers and team leaders over the past few weeks as everyone is suddenly remote. Every single person in a leadership position struggles with (agile) team transparency. These leaders think the team members work alone. (I think they’re correct.) The leaders worry that the team won’t finish the team’s work. (Correct again.) …
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 …
Continue reading “Collection of My Rapidly Remote and Managing in Uncertainty Writing”
Many people talk about “going back to normal.” We aren’t going to return to normal. That old normal is gone, at least for a year, if not longer. (I suspect we will cycle between remote work and office work for the foreseeable future.) What we can do is discover a new normal. Discovery requires different …
Continue reading “We Won’t Return to Normal; We Will Discover Normal”