I had a terrific time with Joe Krebs on his podcast. See Agile FM – Johanna Rothman. We spoke about a number of ideas from the Modern Management Made Easy books: How to recognize and avoid micromanagement What it might mean to engage people at work The kinds of workspaces we need Psychological safety One-on-ones […]
I had great fun with Cherie Silas and Alex Kudinov on their podcast, “Keeping Agile Non-Denominational.” Listen to Unfreezing the Frozen Middle. You’ve seen or heard about this problem: Senior leadership says, “Yes we need agility!” The teams say, “Yes, we got the agile goodness here!” And the middle managers? They’re stuck. The current culture
Gregory Miller and I discussed the ideas of behaviors vs mindset on his podcast. See Behaviors Create an Agile Culture with Johanna Rothman. We spoke about the Modern Management Made Easy books. In our wide-ranging discussion, we discussed the various traps that managers create or encounter: Rewarding heroics instead of collaboration. How to offer credit
I had a terrific time with Chris Williams on his Badass Agile podcast. We discussed the Modern Management Made Easy books. (Let me just say, I love the fact that I can now say I am a Badass. Hehehe.) We had a terrific discussion. Some of the topics we covered: Are managers born or made?
Are you on “Paid Time Off” (PTO) this and/or next week? Several of my clients claim they’re on PTO. That’s what their “away” email says. Yet, they’ve sent me emails, direct messages, all kinds of interactions. What gives? Several possibilities. Too often, they feel they must: Finish some work before the end of the year.
Steve, a software development manager, thought John was a “10x” developer. He explained that John could: Coded faster than anyone else. Write and release full applications over a weekend. “Mind-meld” with the users. No one else in Steve’s group could do this. Was I willing to support and coach the other people in Steve’s group
Everyone feels the pressure right now. Many managers feel pressure to deliver more and better products and services. That pressure rolls downhill to the people doing the work. And, the people doing the work, especially if they’re parents? Well, they clearly made the wrong choice to bring children into the world in the last eight
My agile transformation clients struggle with this big question: How do we effectively reward managers? The more the organization wants or needs an agile transformation, the less the current reward structure works. How do you incent the managers? What makes sense for management compensation? Cindy, a director in a 500-person IT organization struggles with this—for
I wrote Unearthing Your Project’s Delays a couple of years ago. I told the story of Cliff, a manager who wanted to understand why the projects were so late. I gave several talks about that article. One eagle-eyed fellow asked me this question, “How long was the time from T0 to T1?” I said, “Managers
I’m in the midst of collecting the management myths into three books. The series is currently titled “Make Modern Management Easy”. The first book is Practical Ways to Manage Yourself. I was thinking of starting with managing the organization issues. The way organization attempt to “manage performance” and do/do not manage the project portfolio has