Dan, a CIO, needs the teams to work faster. The customers are moving away from the company’s products. If they can recapture the customers, the company will succeed. If not? Layoffs loom. Dan demands the teams start more work. And he demands they finish the work faster than the teams think they can. Even when […]
You need a senior person at a meeting. The meeting is supposed to start at 2 pm. The leader strolls in at 2:15. When leaders act this way, they show their power. When I’ve asked why the person is late, they often say, “I had another meeting that ran long.” While that’s what occurred, people
You’re a leader in the organization. And you’re supposed to be at another meeting, that started 15 minutes ago. Your previous meeting ran long, so now you’re late. But the conversation you just had? That conversation prevented a bad product decision. (Or, it prevented a customer meltdown. Or something equally important.) At least, the decisions
Modern Management: Build a Safe Environment In the agile community, we talk a lot about psychological safety. That’s the safety we need to discuss problems, challenges, or concerns. Here are two examples I’ve seen recently, one at the team level and one in management. A Team Example Cindy, a tester, was convinced the product had
Modern Management: Build Empathy with the People Who Do the Work Here’s a scenario I see too often in organizations. The product teams are supposed to work on several products “at once.” They have several goals for their work, not one specific goal. Why? Because the managers feel too much pressure to reduce the organizational
You might have heard about the Basecamp culture changes last week. I’m sure you heard about Google’s culture problems several years ago. These problems are issues of culture: specifically what we can and cannot discuss. What do “makers”—technical people—in any industry need to discuss? Big product issues: Why we are working on this project at
A manager said to me, “I’m responsible for this department of people.” I asked, “What does that mean?” He said, “I’m responsible for managing the people. I also define the products and what the people need to deliver.” I said, “That seems like a lot of work.” He nodded. “I’m exhausted. I work all the
Have you ever noticed that other people want you to do “more” work? The work has risk—if you say yes to this work, you’ll put every other deliverable at risk. What do you say? You can address this request with a simple sentence: No. That’s it. No. It’s a complete sentence. I bet you feel
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?”
A Scrum Master asked, “How can I engage my team during a remote retrospective? People tell me things they think we could change. Then, we get into the retro and I know people are looking at their phones, not engaged. Got ideas?” I do. These ideas refer to safety. That’s because teams need safety for