lean Archives - Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant

January 12, 2021

Creating Time for Collaboration with Distributed Teams and Agile Approaches

Summary: Many of us have horrible experiences with distributed teams where we can find no possibility of collaboration, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Even if a team is distributed, those team members need collaborative opportunities and space. What’s important is the team’s time for collaboration, not time zones. Here are some ways …

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April 17, 2020

Radical Remote Tip: No Standups

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.) …

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April 7, 2020June 1, 2020

Collection of My Rapidly Remote and Managing in Uncertainty Writing

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 …

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April 3, 2020April 17, 2020

We Won’t Return to Normal; We Will Discover Normal

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 …

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December 5, 2019

Component Teams Create Coupling in Products and Organizations

Many of my clients feel stuck with their component teams. They feel they must implement across the architecture, not through it. That’s because the people are organized in component teams. As the organization grows, so does the number of component teams. The more component teams they have, the more complexity they create in the teams, in …

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November 18, 2019January 8, 2020

Create a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts, Part 6: Hook Your Reader with a Great Title

You might wonder why I don’t start writing a proposal with a title. In my experience, a great title is something I need to ponder and experiment with. I do often start with a placeholder title. When I developed this multitasking talk, I used this title: Stop the madness. End the multitasking. That was a …

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November 11, 2019January 8, 2020

Create a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts, Part 5: Write Your Bio

Your bio establishes your expertise, authority, and credibility in your field. If your conference proposal has a speaking experience field, use that field to explain your expertise, authority, and credibility. I like to think of the bio and speaking experience fields as ways to connect with and invite the right people to your session: These …

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November 9, 2019January 8, 2020

Create a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts, Part 4: Complete the Proposal

You know who your audience is because you framed the proposal. You started with outcomes, and you refined those outcomes when you wrote the abstract. Now it’s time to complete the rest of the proposal, excluding your bio and the title. Bios and titles are different from the rest of the proposal. (Those will be …

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November 8, 2019January 8, 2020

Create a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts, Part 3: Write the Abstract

You decided who your session is for: the people with the problems. You’ve got the outcomes. Now, it’s time to write the abstract. Conference proposals always have a short abstract. Some conferences, such as the Agile 20xx conferences, also have “Information for the Program Team.” You might think of that as the outline or more …

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November 7, 2019January 8, 2020

Create a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts, Part 2: Start with Outcomes

Now that you’ve framed your proposal, start with what you want people to take away from the talk, the outcomes. Why? Because too many descriptions are a promise for an outcome or what people will learn. If you’re coy about the outcomes, people can’t select themselves in or out for your presentation. Speakers who say, …

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