Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
I’ve met a number of agile coaches recently. They tell me they’re hired as Scrum coaches or as Scrum Masters. They see their job as “better Scrum.” It would be lovely if that was their one and only job. However, many of these coaches work in organizations just starting a cultural transformation. Even though the …
I’ve been working with several managers at organizations large and small, who want to capitalize their software “earlier.” These managers have some strongly-held beliefs about the people: People are resources Resources can multitask on several projects at a time If “headquarters” does the difficult work, you can move the “grunt” work to lower wage areas …
I had a wonderful time on the Agile Uprising podcast The Future of Agile. I had such a blast. Listen for the “expletive deleted” phrases. Yes, I actually said the words, “expletive deleted.” I said many other things that might feel contrarian to you. I thank Georgina Hughes, David Sabine for our discussion and Jay Hrcsko for …
Continue reading “Future of Agile Podcast with Agile Uprising”
Back at Agile 2018, I had a chance to record a podcast with Bob Payne. The recording is Johanna Rothman – Agile 2018. We discussed my experience report with Mark Kilby, the geographically distributed agile teams book with Mark, and my roadmapping session. I’ve known Bob forever. I think of him as a friend and as …
Last August, back at the Agile 2018 conference, I had a chance to record a podcast with Howard Sublett. Howard is a terrific interviewer and a good friend and colleague. We spoke about Making Roadmaps More Agile. We had a blast. Several times, I surprised him with some of my thinking and experience. (Since I’m …
I’m catching up on my podcasts and just listened to Seth Godin’s Akimbo episode about honest signals. (Do listen.) It’s about the signals we send that are honest or dishonest and why we might choose one, the other, or both. I started to think about the management signals we send, especially in an agile transformation. …
Let me summarize what I’ve been talking about in these posts. The problem I’m seeing is that too many teams and organizations plan too much in too much detail too soon. Instead of architectural BDUF (Big Design Up Front), it’s project planning as BDUF. They expect one single person (a product manager or a product …
Continue reading “Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 7, Summary”
You’ve started thinking in feature sets. Maybe you’ve experimented with rolling wave plans inside one quarter, so you can change and replan as you need to support your project or program. You’ve discussed flow-based roadmapping as a way to create MVPs and MVEs, release smaller value more often so you can make better decisions. You …
Continue reading “Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 6, Managers Want Commitments”
If you need to plan more often than once a quarter, how do you know how to replan? Instead of incurring the time and cost when you bring everyone together, consider the Product Value Team. (In past writing and presentations, I’ve called this the Product Owner Value Team. I am trying to change my term …
Continue reading “Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 5, the Product Value Team”
One of my clients was trying—valiantly—to make their quarterly planning sessions work. They prepared, getting the big hotel room. They had plenty of supplies. The planning even went well. However, within two weeks, their plan had no relation to reality. That meant that for the next ten weeks, the product owners were “on their own.” …