This is Johanna Rothman’s September 2026 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. One of my trusted advisor clients, Gary, told me he was worried about how their organization used their LLMs. “I feel as if no one takes responsibility for their thoughts or their actions. They blindly trust
Most teams want to work on something useful for customers. In the same vein, most product leaders also want to offer something useful for customers. That’s how products fulfill the organization’s strategy. Yet, I see so many product leaders outsource their product thinking to LLMs. Why? Because it’s hard to discover what customers want. You
Let’s assume that your team does have a definition of Ready. And that they (possibly with a product leader) have shaped the work. But the team still says they don’t know how to start—they don’t have the right people to think through the problem and finish it. If you have component teams, the team is
This is Johanna Rothman’s February 2026 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Jim, one of my trusted advisor clients, was all gung-ho on AI last year. He told me that his AI work allowed their senior management team to define their strategy, “once and for all.” That strategy was
This is Johanna Rothman’s September 2025 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Humans excel at seeing problem signals—the signs that we have a problem. However, we often have blind spots about the root causes of those problems. Our beliefs and/or insufficient or irrelevant data reinforce those blind spots.
This is the September 2024 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. After reading last month’s newsletter about sneaky problems that reappear, a savvy project manager, Eric, sent me this question. “My problems don’t reappear because I solved part of them. I can’t solve anything at all.
This is the August 2024 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Problems. They’re always there, just waiting to pop up and say, “Surprise! Gotcha!” I don’t mind new problems, but the sneaky problems, the ones that reappear after I thought I fixed them? I really
This is the third installment in a series on Agile Superpowers. Read Agile Superpower #1: Focus on Collaborative Teamwork and Agile Superpower #2: Reduce WIP to the Most Important Work for more. Does your agile team still use the same old three questions in your standup? If so, you’re not alone. Those questions focus on each individual,
Tim, a C-Level leader, loves his skip-level meetings. He feels the meetings offer him a chance to connect with people he doesn’t normally see. They get to talk about whatever the other person wants. Sharon, a different C-Level leader, never conducts skip-level meetings. She feels that those meetings might cause her managers to feel unsafe,
Are you wary of asking for help? You might feel weak. Or, you might worry your colleagues see you as weak or incompetent. You might not feel safe if you want to ask for help. However, very few of us know everything we need. Or can do everything we want to accomplish without asking for