“James, I need to talk to you about Bill.” Susanne shut the door and sat down in the visitor chair. “OK, what’s up?” James stopped typing at his computer. He walked to his visitor table and sat down. “I just walked by Bill’s office. He’s leaning back in his chair. I could swear he’s snoring!” […]
Josiah, the VP of engineering, called his directors meeting to order. “First on our agenda is my plan for the reorganization of our department,” he said. The directors looked at each other, puzzled. “I’ve noticed that several of the project teams are having trouble working together, so I’ve decided that we need a reorganization back
“We have mandatory all-hands meeting this afternoon. I’m going to have a stomachache then,” David said. “What do you mean?” Jenny asked. “You haven’t even had lunch yet. How do you know? What are you talking about?” “Look, you know what our wonderful division head, Martin, is going to say. He’s not going to take
“Hey, George, I want to talk to you about training for my group,” Andrea said. “Don’t start with that again,” George said. “I know you have a group of developers who need training. Two years ago, when you ran testing, you had a group of testers who needed training. Why do all your groups need
A manager took me aside at a recent engagement. “You know, Johanna, there’s something I just don’t understand about this agile thing. It sure doesn’t look like everyone is being used at 100 percent.” “And what if they aren’t being used at 100 percent? Is that a problem for you?” “Heck, yes. I’m paying their
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
Every so often, I hear managers say things they vowed they’d never say when they were technical contributors. (Yeah, parents do that too, but that’s not the topic today 🙂 Here are a few of my favorites with their translations: “We have expertise in that area.” Translation: We have no idea what you’re talking about,
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