Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
In a conversation about product quality, the product owner said, “If the testers found the problems faster, we would be done faster.” The tester said, “If the developers didn’t put so many problems in, we’d be done by now.” The developer said, “If you didn’t pressure me so much, I could have done a better …
Continue reading “Managers Make the Real Product Quality Decisions”
In the agile and lean communities, we talk a lot about transparency. This image is the transparency principle we used in From Chaos to Distributed Agile Teams. I see the most product and program success when the various teams create transparency between them, the middle of the continuum. That’s the full-product transparency. I see many …
I’ve seen several cases of process standardization recently. Those processes don’t translate to the current context. The processes don’t have sufficient agility to deliver the necessary results. Yet, people who want to use agile approaches don’t want to apply agile thinking to their processes. Some clients want to create their custom agile process— and then …
I had the chance to be on Andrei Crudu’s Techie Leadership podcast. He asks questions about successes and failures as a leader. When we’re on podcasts, it’s tempting for us to tell stories about other people. I do have plenty of stories about leaders in my consulting experience. And, I thought I should share some …
Several years ago, a client, Alex, asked me, “What’s wrong with this team? They don’t want to learn anything.” I was surprised. I asked him for more information. “Well, when I ask them to use TDD, they don’t want to even learn about it. When I ask them to use CI, they don’t want to. …
Continue reading “Team Improvement: Management Desires vs Team Reality”
As we move to more remote work, especially in these pandemic times, how do we integrate people so they can succeed? See Hiring Geeks That Fit for all the new employee checklists and how to use them. (Want to preview the checklists and templates? Download the HiringGeeksThatFitTemplates for yourself.) I updated the checklists with a …
I’ve had the pleasure—and displeasure—of many remote meetings over the past few weeks. The difficult meetings had a common root cause: the meeting leaders attempted to do a direct transfer of how they lead an in-person meeting to remote/WFH meetings. When that occurs, they miss the ability to optimize on our separation by choosing how …
I’ve worked with several managers and team leaders over the past few weeks as everyone is suddenly remote. Every single person in a leadership position struggles with (agile) team transparency. These leaders think the team members work alone. (I think they’re correct.) The leaders worry that the team won’t finish the team’s work. (Correct again.) …
I’m rewriting/reorganizing the Lead an Innovative Organization book. I realized I have 7 innovation principles: Clarify the organization’s purpose. Manage for effectiveness. Seek outcomes, not outputs. Flow efficiency at all levels. Encourage small-world networks of relationships. Organizational integrity. Encourage change and experiments. Anytime I’ve seen a successful innovation culture, I’ve seen these principles. (I’m trying …
Continue reading “Want Business Agility? Use These Seven Innovation Principles”
Many organizations heeded the COVID-19 warnings and sent people home to work as remote teams. The managers want to proceed as if the people can work from home and have “business as usual.” They’ve made these requests to their staff: Work at home, as if you were at the office. (Keep the same hours and …
Continue reading “This Is Not and Cannot Be “Business as Usual””