Your company is planning a layoff, and you’re one of the managers who has to decide and deliver the bad news. What do you say? What do you do? Almost everyone I know who has to do the laying-off feels terrible about that. But you can create a congruent environment and make it possible for […]
Most managers I see feel a ton of pressure for delivery. The managers need to “deliver” more projects, products, and features. That pressure rolls down to the teams. Too often, the team hears, “Can you just do a little more?” That often leads to the so-called “quiet quitting” problem. The problem isn’t quiet quitting. The
The news is full of this “quiet quitting” idea. Supposedly, employees are doing just what the work demands and no more. That sounds reasonable to me. (See the blog post, It’s Time to Clarify Work Boundaries and “Quiet Quitting.”) I don’t see why people should do “more” than a day’s worth of work in a day.
The news is full of this idea of “quiet quitting.” That’s where people do just what the job requires and not more. Well, I have a contrarian view: Why do managers think it’s okay to ask people to do more? What is it about “more” that managers want? In Practical Ways to Lead and Serve
We’re pretty good at knowing when someone is a good fit for a technical role. But how do we know when someone is ready for technical leadership or management? That’s a lot more difficult, and that’s because leadership or management—at any level—is a different job than working in the technology. Here are some ideas based
A project portfolio manager contacted me via LinkedIn. The question: How can this portfolio team start to manage the project portfolio when the organization has 600 projects? Right now, the portfolio team is supposed to read the status decks for each of those 600, to understand each project’s status. How to start? That’s an impossible
Fred, a client, asked how I could help him get more work out of his resources. I asked if he meant people. He said yes. So I asked if he focused more on what each person did or if he focused on the team’s work. “Each person.” I smiled and said, “I have a deal
Too often, managers support training for everyone except themselves. However, since managers create and refine the culture, management training has an exceptional return for the time and money you invest. These three workshops, based on my Modern Management Made Easy books, will support your practice of management so you can be more effective. I recommend
Acme’s project portfolio team was stuck. Three months ago, they’d funded five experimental projects at $150k each. The portfolio team hoped those projects might offer the organization new customers and revenue streams. Now, the project teams reported several concerns: The technology was more complex than anyone had expected. Instead of the teams’ typical 2-4 days
A senior manager said, “We give our resources everything they could need: technology, tools, even some training. Why are they so slow?” I asked, “How many projects are they working on?” “Each resource has at least two projects so they stay productive and efficient.” These managers have created a resource efficiency culture, not a flow