Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
How could we organize if we want flow efficiency? We would reward managers by their span of service instead of control, part 3, stop organizing by function, and move to something that looks like a product-based organization? My transforming idea for this question was to think about the organization as legacy code. We understand how to …
Continue reading “Possible Changes for a Product Approach, Part 4”
This series is about how you might move to a product-based organization. Part 1 was about how when we organize by function, the recognition and rewards might prevent a successful agile transformation. Part 2 was about one possibility for moving to a product-based organization. Before we get to who moves where, we need to consider the manager …
Continue reading “Defining the Manager’s Role for a Product Approach, Part 3”
If you’re thinking about an agile transformation, you already know about feature teams. You might even call them/use them as product teams. You might wonder about organizing all the work as product work. See Your Current Organization Many organizations use functions to organize people. The “Typical Product Development Organization” shows the kind of organization I …
Continue reading “Designing an Organization for a Product Approach, Part 1”
In Part 1, I suggested that when we organize by function, the recognition and rewards might prevent a successful agile transformation. In this part, I’ll discuss an option for a product-oriented organization. Consider a Product-Oriented Organization Instead of organizing by function, consider a product-oriented organization. Again, I am not saying this is the only way …
Continue reading “Designing an Organization for a Product Approach, Part 2”
A couple of weeks ago, I delivered the first version of my Free Your Agile Team talk at Agile New England. Here’s a direct link to the video. I spoke about the problem of a framework-first approach to transforming to an agile culture. I also spoke about the plethora of team-based coaches and the insufficiency of management coaching. (I …
Continue reading “Free Your Agile Team Video Posted (Includes Q&A)”
Many people draw distinctions between people who do management-kind of work and people who do “individual contributor” kind of work. I’ve been asking if they mean individual work or team member work. Sometimes, they do mean individual work. More often, they mean team member. Our culture shapes our language. (And, our language shapes our culture.) …
I explained about objectives and the differences between MBOs and OKRs in Part 1. I’m tackling the issues of “accountability” in this part. Examine Accountability What does accountability mean to you? I’m serious about that question. For many people—managers included—people are accountable when we can blame them for not doing something. If you don’t achieve …
Continue reading “Objectives & Accountability vs Responsibility & Autonomy, Part 2”
I have personal and professional goals. Sometimes, I state them as objectives: complete this book, learn that thing. Those are personal objectives. My personal objectives look like MBOs, Management By Objectives. These personal objectives contribute to my company, but they are not a corporate objective. Some of my goals are corporate objectives: release that book, build …
Continue reading “When OKRs Become MBOs and Accountability, Part 1”
Many new-to-agile teams use some form of iteration-based agile approach. Often, in the form of Scrum. Back in Time You Spend in Agile Meetings (near the bottom of the post), I enumerated all the possible meetings. I suggested the team review its WIP limits and think about limiting the WIP for the entire team. When the …
Whenever I teach agile approaches, I discuss the possible meetings a team might choose. Some people turn to me in dismay. They start adding up all the meeting time and say, “That’s a lot of meetings.” Could be. Especially if you use iterations. You might have these meetings: A retrospective once every two weeks. A …