I just tried to join a virtual conference in a new-to-me distributed meeting product. It’s supposed to be “easy” and “smooth.” Not for me. I stumbled around for 15 minutes and then left, totally unsuccessful. All the participants are supposed to have avatars—but I never understood how to set mine. (I do have a Gravatar. […]
After I delivered a talk about product management, Fred, a prospective writer, asked a question. He said, “It seems like there are no new ideas. How can I write something that’s already been done before?” I said, “Write your truth, your experiences. Don’t worry about what’s come before.” He said, “But someone already wrote that.”
Do you have an overstuffed backlog the way Jenny did in Create More Success: How to Say No to “Everything” to Say Yes to What’s Necessary Now? I offered “now” advice in that newsletter. But what about the future? How can you prevent an overstuffed backlog, roadmap, or all those great ideas from interrupting your
If you’re an unemployed agilist, you are not alone. There way too many of you. But the causes and solutions might not be clear to you. That’s why Part 1 of this series discusses your value and what managers want and need. That part discusses why managers see agile coaches and Scrum Masters as staff
A French writer bought Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer and wasn’t sure what I meant by a “fieldstone.” He couldn’t find a translation that made sense to him. In Weinberg on Writing, Jerry explained fieldstones as a way to build a piece of writing, just like masons used blocks to build stone walls. The more
I’m experimenting with audio and video. So I started a podcast called, “60 Seconds of Johanna’s WIP.” Listen here: If you want to listen through your podcast app, go to 60 Seconds of Johanna’s WIP September 29, 2023. I will also add those videos to my YouTube channel. The plan—and I use that term quite
After I spoke with Chad and Jeff on the previous podcast, Deep Dive into Successful Independent Consulting with the Agile Wire, we spoke all about the idea of building products, starting with consulting-based products. See Building the Right Product with Johanna Rothman. Some of our discussion points: Consulting products: how to think about products for
Several people have contacted me recently about “missing” articles on this site. They say, “Here’s a URL and why isn’t the article there?” The article isn’t there because I didn’t write it. Yet. But the people contact me because the LLMs (Large Language Models) claim I have written these articles. How did the LLMs do
Many nonfiction writers start books with outlines. I’m not big on outlines because they shortcut the writer’s thinking. (Nonfiction writers think and learn as they write.) However, some writers go off on tangents without outlines. Or, some writers (raises hand) are prone to put everything she ever learned about this topic into one book. Either
I am thrilled to announce a book birthday: Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit. People often ask me how long it takes me to write a book. Every book takes the time it takes. But this one took much longer than I expected. Here’s the story of the consulting book. In the