Both David Maister, in Compensation Systems, and George Dinwiddie, in Agile Compensation, have useful comments about compensation systems. There’s something implicit in both pieces, that the criteria to move from position to position (as well as from one salary to another) have to be explicit. For years, I called this expertise criteria. You develop expertise […]
Bob Sutton has an intriguing post, A Surprising Study of Infant Mortality Rates: Evidence-Based Management Meets Evidence Medicine. One of the surprising conclusions: One kind of collaboration was linked to higher mortality rates. When front-line employees became more involved in unit governance — doing things like being involved in decisions about who was hired and
Read Eric Sink’s Exception Handling in Running a Business. He says: In entrepreneurship, there is no substitute for good judgment. I would modify that to “In management, there is no substitute for good judgment.”
I’ve written before about getting organized, especially when it comes to cleaning up my office. My breakthrough came the last time, when I realized I’m the kind of person who needs to see everything out that I’m working on. Same with my to-do list. (See Cleaning Up the Office, Round 3.) I use paper for
At SD earlier this week, I led a tutorial about coaching. Imagine my surprise when I asked people why they were there, and some of them said, “I have a person who’s not doing so well. I need to coach them.” Uh, no. You need to give that person feedback. Feedback is information about the
While teaching a management class recently, one participant came up to me at a break, and said, “Why are you teaching us project management with this portfolio stuff? This is supposed to be a management workshop.” Portfolio management, determining which projects to fund and when, is management work. The best managers actively manage the
George Dinwiddie pointed me to this great column, Fired With Enthusiasm. I have a talk that I’ve given at a bunch of Software Development conferences, called “Successful Software Management: X Lessons Learned,” where X started at 8, and is now up to 16. Lesson # 11 is “Fire People Who Can’t Do the Work.” I
There’s a great quote over at The pernicious thinking behind multi-tasking. Note the admission that required multi-tasking is an implicit means to avoid conflicts around setting priorities. I’ve been doing a bunch of multitasking talks this year (and suggesting ways for people to say no), and have written about it in Successful Project Management.
A number of my clients and colleagues are struggling with the problem of bringing people into their organizations. In Hiring the Best …, I recommend the buddy system for bringing people on. I wrote a little article, How2 Create a Buddy (Informal Mentoring) Program. But maybe you didn’t know that, or can’t figure out how
I’m close to falling into “Crossing the Desert” syndrome. A project team focuses on an interim milestone, works like the devil to meet that milestone. They meet the milestone, look up, and realize they’re not at the end of the project–they still have to finish the darn thing. They’re living the Crossing the Desert