Oh dear. I was not sufficiently articulate in my last post. Both Frank and David in their comments asked about capacity, the output of the organization over time. That will teach me to post when I’m tired. (Maybe.) Let me try this again. In each of these projects, senior management wanted more features than […]
A client was optimizing for what they thought was the bottleneck in their software development: the testers. In the assessment, I gathered some quantitative data about how long the testers took to test and how long it took for the other groups to perform their work. (They used a phased lifecycle.) The testers were
I’m on vacation, so I’ll be blogging very little this week. In my last Pragmatic Manager email newsletter, I wrote about killing canceled projects. Here’s the summary: Explain why you’re canceling the project. Give people time to clean up their work before starting on their new work. Cancel all meetings associated with this project.
At first, when Hal posted State of the Art of Project Management — Underlying Theory is Obsolete I wasn’t sure what he meant by #9: “Project portfolio management is an excuse not to manage each project. Each project team must be set-up for success.” Now in PMO: Obsolete Before It Gets Off the Ground, I
The Pragmatic Manager, Volume 2 #1 Contents: This month’s Feature Article: Kill Canceled Projects On the Bookshelf Announcements Want to hear more from Johanna? Want to read more of Johanna’s writing? =-=-=-=-=- Feature Article: Kill Canceled Projects I’ve worked with several managers and developers who had a difficult time killing cancelled projects. One developer was
© 2003 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Crosstalk, Dec 2003. This article is the outgrowth of my original talk/article, Successful Engineering Management: 7 Lessons Learned Successful managers realize that they need to balance the needs of the business, the employees, and the work environment to be effective. In this article, the author
When we talk to new managers, we ask them, “How many of you received management training?” Fewer than 50% raise their hands. As an industry, we don’t do a great job of grooming managers. Sure there are exceptions—bosses who mentor and develop the people in their groups to move into management and companies with strong
On the face of it, higher productivity looks like a Good Thing. More products for less time. Who wouldn’t want this? But I wonder about this search for higher productivity. What do managers really want? If you want to understand about productivity for software organizations, read Putnam and Myers’ new book, Five Core Metrics:
We all do it, but it’s pricey: Context switching demands valuable time and energy. Ranking priorities can help you manage that melting clock. Bob, the VP, told Sam, the PM, “I have three high-priority projects. I trust you. I want you to run those projects.” Sam’s flattered, but queasy: He knows that if he tries to
Steve Smith commented on yesterday’s post, “I think managers have a tough job, especially middle managers. I think that middle managers who are respectful to their employees but choose to execute to abide with their management team’s decision are acting in a dignified manner.” Steve is right, and it’s not always easy to balance