Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
Many new-to-agile teams use some form of iteration-based agile approach. Often, in the form of Scrum. Back in Time You Spend in Agile Meetings (near the bottom of the post), I enumerated all the possible meetings. I suggested the team review its WIP limits and think about limiting the WIP for the entire team. When the …
When I teach any sort of product/project/portfolio management, I ask, “Who believes multitasking works?” Always, at least several managers raise their hands. They believe multitasking works because they multitask all the time. Why? Because the managers have short work-time and long decision-wait time. If you are a manager, your time for any given decision looks …
Continue reading “Why Managers Believe Multitasking Works: Long Decision Wait Times”
Whenever I teach agile approaches, I discuss the possible meetings a team might choose. Some people turn to me in dismay. They start adding up all the meeting time and say, “That’s a lot of meetings.” Could be. Especially if you use iterations. You might have these meetings: A retrospective once every two weeks. A …
The nice folks at ScheduleMailer interviewed me about how I accomplish what I do. They consider me a time management expert. That’s what project portfolio management will do for you. I thought it was funny that one of the questions was about work/life balance. I wanted to say, “Honey, it’s all life.” I managed to …
In Organizing an Agile Program, Part 1, Introduction, I suggested you think about the communication paths of your programs. Instead of hierarchies, I suggested you think of networks of teams. In Organizing an Agile Program Part 2, Networks for Managing Agile Programs, I showed you how loosely connected networks might work. I explained how you …
Continue reading “Organizing an Agile Program, Part 3, Large Programs Demand Servant Leadership”
“Have you heard the new thing that Andrew is doing?” Gabe asked, shaking his head as he headed towards the cafeteria with Cynthia. “No, what?” Cynthia said. “We have to fill out time cards with our actual time on them. He wants to know how much time we really spend at work. The more time, …
Continue reading “Management Myth #10: I Can Measure the Work by the Time People Spend at Work”
I did decide to talk about how we got started on 100% utilization and what to do about it. I didn’t say everything I wanted to say, so here is what I wish I’d said: How 100% Utilization Got Started Back in the early days of computing, machines were orders of magnitude more expensive than …
Continue reading “What I Wish I'd Said for the Lightning Talk: 100% Utilization”
I get to see a lot of meeting behavior. A few rules I use for meetings: End the meeting at 5 minutes before the hour. Most people have another meeting starting on the hour, and this gives them a shot at transportation and bio-break time. Ask people to turn off phones, laptops, etc directly. If …
I’m sure you’ve read of the AIG scandal by now. (Here is the Fox News story and here is the CNN story.) Shame is too small a word for those executives. I would love to know where their entitlement comes from. I’d squish it like a bug. Maybe they went to the resort to do …
Continue reading “Resorts Aren't Necessary for Strategic Planning”
I’ve been writing pieces of the project portfolio book, and was wondering how to explain how managers get caught in the trap of having too many projects. Then I read Joe Ely’s Minimizing Work-in-Process for Knowledge Workers, and had an “aha” moment. (Well, I think I did. You let me know.) For many managers (and …