The various AI vendors want us to trust their autonomous agents. I have several problems I would love to use AI to solve. (Including updating all the tags on this site!) However, I cannot trust the agents yet. Even when I use interactive prompting, I’m not happy with the results. Those results can change (non-deterministic […]
If you are like most people I know, you have way too many meetings. That leads to an overcrowded calendar and delayed decisions. Worse, it means the time you spend in meetings prevents you from doing “your” work, whatever that work is. That’s especially important the more responsibility you have. The greater your responsibility, the
This is Johanna Rothman’s May 2025 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Have you noticed that some teams seem to be more effective than others? Most of the time, they manage their WIP (Work in Progress). They learn together. Often, they collaborate across the organization. But the big
I’m finishing the Project Lifecycles book. Last week, I realized I made several mistakes: It was past time to ask for people to write praise quotes. I had only asked men to write praise quotes. Neither of these was a disaster, but they were embarrassing. Especially since Bob Sutton had posted this, and I replied
Several people on LinkedIn commented on my post, Want Better and Faster Results? Increase Team Size and Reduce WIP. They wondered if adding more people to a small team would violate Brooks’ Law. As with all good questions, the answer is “It depends.” It depends on how your lifecycle manages feedback loops and learning, how
For years, I’ve advocated relatively small teams. Why? Small teams can more easily learn—faster and together. All because they have fewer communication paths. I was only partially right. Smaller teams tend to have lower WIP (Work in Progress). Even if a 5 to 7-person team falls into the Everyone Starts Their Own Story trap (see
Bob Sutton (@work_matters) tweeted this the other day: Perhaps companies ought to stop using “IC” or “Individual Contributor.” It seems to absolve such employees from helping others I retweeted it and we had some back-and-forth about what to call people i organizations. Let’s eliminate these words for people who are not managers: Individual Contributor: There
Use the Power of Your Rumor Mill Project and program managers often ask, “How can I get people to work across teams? I don’t want to delay people or solve problems for them when they can solve problems themselves. I just don’t know what to try.” My advice: Use the rumor mill. You’ve seen the
I’m a new contributor to the TechBeacon site. I have an article up, called Small-world networks: a lightweight alternative to SAFe for scaling agile. Yes, it’s based on Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization. Hope you enjoy the article.
Agile 2015 was the week of Aug 3-7 this year. It was a great week. Here are the links to my interviews and talks. Interview with Dave Prior. We spoke about agile programs, continuous planning, and how you might use certifications. I made a little joke about measurement. Interview with Paul DuPuy of SolutionsIQ. We