Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
I hope that this 3-part series on how to move to continuous integration and how to evaluate if it’s worth moving to continuous integration on your program convinced you moving to continuous integration was worth it for programs. The reason continuous integration is an issue on programs, is because the lack of CI can delay …
Continue reading “Why Focus on Continuous Integration for Programs?”
I recently spoke with a colleague who’s a little confused. John was just promoted to being the development manager in a small organization. He’s used to doing lots of work—whatever needs to be done, he does. Now, he’s managing 6 developers in an organization that’s trying to move to agile. No, they haven’t had any …
Continue reading “New Manager, New Product Owner, Too Much Work”
In But I Need to Know When the Project Will Be Done, I talked about what you can do for estimating an agile project (do a gross estimate of the backlog, estimate your velocity, better your estimate every iteration and keep talking to your management). What if you have a contract? What if your managers …
Ian Dees and Miles Forrest interviewed me about Manage Your Project Portfolio. We had a great time in the interview, and it shows. Enjoy!
Last week was the Agile 2009 Conference. It was great. The stage producers and their teams had selected a phenomenal program, Elastic Communications outdid themselves as the event planners, and the volunteers helped everything proceed smoothly. Alistair Cockburn and Jared Spo0l delivered fabulous keynotes. Here’s my personal retrospective: What stood out for me: the sheer …
Continue reading “A Personal Retrospective on the Agile 2009 Conference”
I had coffee with a friend Saturday night. She said, “Our family has a tradition of starting many projects to see what we can stick with. If you don’t start a project, you can’t finish it.” She’s right. You certainly can’t finish something you don’t start. But the real question for all of is: Should …
Janice strode down the hall and made a sharp right at a cubicle decorated with dragons. “Hey, Steve, got a minute? I need your help with a problem.” “Janice, the last time you asked me for my help, I got stuck in that installation mess. I appreciate being one of your team leads, but I …
I’ve written before about getting organized, especially when it comes to cleaning up my office. My breakthrough came the last time, when I realized I’m the kind of person who needs to see everything out that I’m working on. Same with my to-do list. (See Cleaning Up the Office, Round 3.) I use paper for …
Continue reading “Getting Organized: What's Different About Managers”
I recently spoke with a manager who had too many projects and not enough people. (Sound familiar?) I suggested he organize two kinds of project portfolios. The first is organized with the weeks across the top and the people down the side, explaining which people are doing what in each week, and how much work …
A new-to-a-company manager explained this situation to me recently. She’d overheard something like this recently from one of her team members. So you’re working in a place where it seems as if all the managers are Bozos. But you like the work and you like the people, and you know nothing lasts forever. After …