Originally published in Computerworld. During the past few years, we’ve been bombarded with news of outsourced call centers, help desks, testing, development, projects and entire IT infrastructures. It sure looks as if outsourcing is the way to go. Before you jump on the outsourcing bandwagon, ask yourself this question: What’s the value of the knowledge […]
Hal asks a fascinating question in Variation is an Enemy Enabler of Project Success: How can we take advantage of serendipity rather than forcing an outcome in our projects? (paraphrased) One technique is to observe and listen to the project. When PMs observe their projects, they look at and listen to: How people work together.
The Pragmatic Manager, Volume 1 #4 Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Use Overtime as a Last Resort Announcements On the Bookshelf Want to hear more from Johanna? Want to read more of Johanna’s writing? =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Use Overtime as a Last Resort Overtime is the last degree of flexibility in a project. Unfortunately, too
Release trains, the technique of planning releases on a particular date several times a year (such as quarterly releases, on the 12th of the last month of the quarter), can help you manage your development and test staff as well as machines and tool resources. I wrote about release trains a while ago here.
Hal’s post about the meaning of project management got me thinking about accountability and how we use it in organizations. In the last three weeks, I’ve heard these definitions: “I want to know who’s accountable. Who do I get to fire if they screw up?” “The testers/project manager/management team is accountable for the bugs.
In his comment to my previous post, Babu said, “unqualified project managers quickly sink a project which would’ve otherwise fared better.” (Keith, I’ll respond to your next comment in another post.) I’ve had the pleasure of meeting great project managers, and some not-so-great project managers. Here’s my list of necessary skills for great project
In addition to Frank Patrick’s excellent post of the Top 10 Sources of Project Failure, I have one more: No project manager. In the past week, I’ve received inquiries from people, asking how they can successfully complete projects or programs without project or program managers. I tell them I don’t know how to do that.
I’ve been musing over types of people on projects lately. This morning, my husband and I exhibited two common types: the serially, walk-through-the-whole-thing-systematically type (hubby), and the big picture, can’t-wait-to-see-it-put-together type (me). See Do Your Interview Questions Discriminate For or Against Your Needs? for more information. Mark’s a Guardian (SJ in MBTI terms), I’m a Rational (NT
From the “I wish I’d said that” list: Via Frank Patrick’s blog, Mike Cohn, in his User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development. Chapter 10, Why Plans Go Wrong in pdf, explains buffers and padding and scheduling: “A Buffer Isn’t Padding — A buffer isn’t padding. Padding is extra time added to a schedule that
I had a lovely dinner with Brian Marick and our spouses Saturday night. (Now that he’s blogrolled me, I can’t tease him about that. Thanks, Brian!) Two things made me reconsider the way I manage people while managing a project: things we discussed at dinner, and Brian’s recent posting about the explicit role of the