Successful Independent Consulting

How to Predict A Little About the Future Work Without Long Intricate Plans

newsletter / /

Susan, an experienced senior leader, wondered what to do. Her company’s market was on a roller coaster. Increased revenue meant a lot more customers, who clamored for more features. So, the product leaders pressured the teams to deliver faster.​ But she’d been in a roller coaster situation before. After two years of stupendous growth, revenue leveled off in just one […]

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Unemployed Agilists: How to Show Your Value to Support What Managers Want, Part 1

agile, MPD / /

Every day, I hear more stories of agile coaches or Scrum Masters losing their jobs. Why? Several reasons: No manager cares about “agile” even if they care about agility. So, selling “agile” into the organization doesn’t create any traction for change. Agile coaches and Scrum Masters are staff positions, not “line” jobs. Worse, many agile

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How to Plan for Change: Clear Strategy, Small Deliverables, Rolling Wave with Options

MPD, portfolio management / /

Regardless of whether you work inside an organization or you work for yourself, the start of the new year allows all of us to reset and restart. That means too many of us think we need to “plan” for an entire year. Before you consider an entire year, reflect on last year: How much of

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Consulting Tip #7: Beware of Other People Using Your Intellectual Property for Their Exposure

consulting, MPD / /

Recently, a newish site asked me to become part of their “editorial board.” They didn’t say what the responsibilities were, so I asked. The reply: Spend five hours a month in meetings (roughly an hour each week). Write a new, unique column each month. I asked what I would get in return. Nothing. No payment

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How Agile Managers Use Uncertainty to Create Better Decisions Faster

management, MPD / /

Many of my middle-management and senior leadership clients want certainty about future work. That’s one of the reasons they create huge backlogs and long roadmaps. Yet, even those backlogs and roadmaps don’t offer certainty. One of these managers said, “I have so much uncertainty and ambiguity. I feel as if I can’t make a good,

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Consulting Tip 5: How to Think About Business Models to Avoid Commodity Work & Commodity Fees

consulting, MPD / /

Much of my LinkedIn and Twitter feeds have questionnaires with two or three choices. One of those choices contains the One Right Answer. All the other answers are Wrong. Or, a person poses a question that’s supposed to show that they—and they alone—know the answer to the question. (I ranted about one of those on

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Can’t Find Me on Social Media? Please Subscribe in Some Way

MPD, writing / /

Some facts that make me a little sad: Social media is more and more splintered. Sites that used to be enjoyable became tolerable. Then, they became intolerable. Worse, the algorithms decide whose posts I should see and whose I should not. If you have not read any of Cory Doctorow’s writing about enshittification, I strongly

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Consulting Tip 4: Always Focus on Your Value for Your Client’s Time

consulting, MPD / /

Warning: Rant ahead. Today, I received several chirpy, happy, perky emails from either connections or LinkedIn’s email. They all said essentially the same thing: “Hello, friend. What’s making you happy or successful today?” I hate these emails. Just hate them. They feel fake to me and worse, they bring out the grumpy in me. And

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