Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
In my experience, too many projects are under too much pressure. The sponsors want all of the features, completed in too-short time, with no defects. And, if possible, the sponsors think the project should cost nothing, the team should not need any training, and the team can work in any way, regardless of the desired …
Continue reading “Summary for a Project’s Boundaries: Drivers, Constraints, & Floats”
I wrote about how to pick a driver in Part 1. In Part 2, I wrote about how you might finesse some of the constraints and floats if you can release frequently. What if you’re like this organization, Acme? Acme has been working towards agility for the last couple of years. However, they still have …
In Part 1, I wrote about the origins of drivers, constraints, and floats. I needed them when we only could release the project once to the customers. You saw the questions that help people choose the project driver. What about the constraints and floats? I think of constraints as bounding the project inside the driver, …
Continue reading “Create & Manage the Project’s Bounds, Part 2 (Constraints and Floats)”
Do you know your project’s bounds? Do you know what your sponsors want from your project? For many years, I heard about the “iron triangle.” Sometimes, the triangle was “Scope, Quality, Cost.” Sometimes, it was “Scope, Date, Cost.” It was always three things out of a minimum of four possibilities. I never saw a triangle …
Continue reading “Create & Manage the Project’s Bounds, Part 1”
Do I advocate insubordination? Some of my Modern Management Made Easy technical reviewers wonder. And, when I looked at this definition of insubordination, I had to agree. However, when I read that definition, I don’t see any mutual problem-solving. I also don’t see any mutual purpose or respect. I don’t see how that form of …
Continue reading “Insubordination vs Caring About the System”
I spoke with a project manager recently. She told me her story. I used to facilitate project teams as a project manager. Why a project manager? Because the project had a beginning and an end. We had (and still have) too many products to keep the same teams on them for a long time. For …
Continue reading “Agile Project Manager, Scrum Master, or Product Owner?”
Many of my clients feel stuck with their component teams. They feel they must implement across the architecture, not through it. That’s because the people are organized in component teams. As the organization grows, so does the number of component teams. The more component teams they have, the more complexity they create in the teams, in …
Continue reading “Component Teams Create Coupling in Products and Organizations”
I keep encountering managers and consultants who want to make work “fun” for people. As a goal, “fun” is a bunch of hooey. Before I was a consultant, I held various Director-level positions at local companies. Each organization had mandatory fun days. In one organization, we played softball. Yes, everyone—especially the managers—had to play softball …
When Esther and I wrote Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management, we didn’t really think one-on-ones were a secret. But, managers weren’t conducting the one-on-ones regularly. The managers canceled for other “higher priority” meetings. The first modern management book is about how managers manage themselves. Part of that management is how and when they …
I’m in the midst of collecting the management myths into three books. The series is currently titled “Make Modern Management Easy”. The first book is Practical Ways to Manage Yourself. I was thinking of starting with managing the organization issues. The way organization attempt to “manage performance” and do/do not manage the project portfolio has …
Continue reading “First of Three Modern Management Books Available”