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 a huge fan of team-based collaboration to complete small stories through the architecture. (The image above shows three small stories implemented through the architecture.) More collaboration means lower WIP (Work in Progress). That lower WIP allows the team to increase their throughput (finished features) and lower cycle time (release something useful faster). (See how
During a sunset sail last week (see the image), I had a lovely conversation with a guy who said he did “accounting” type stuff. I asked him more, and it turns out he works for a three-letter acronym organization. No, I don’t know which one, even though I asked. He’s trying to organize a project
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
In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1, I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency, where we watch the flow of the work, not the people doing tasks. Too few organizations can do that. Then I offered three suggestions for teams in any lifecycle in Effective Agility: Three
I continue to work with people who have trouble with their agile approach. They tell me their relative estimation isn’t working for them. They continue to roll over items, from sprint to sprint. They’ve rolled over some items for six months or longer. The people feel demoralized. And the Scrum Masters or agile project managers
I had a chance to speak with Tobias Schlottke on his Alphalist podcast: Episode 92: Johanna Rothman The Pragmatic Manager. We had a wide-ranging conversation, mostly about management. We included topics from my programming experience, why multitasking is a disaster, and how to use flow metrics to understand reality. We also touched on many of
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
Several of my clients are trying to do the impossible right now—plan their portfolio for an entire year. Or plan their product backlogs for eighteen months or longer. When I ask them how well that’s worked for them in the past, they often say, “Our planning works great. Our execution? Not so well.” That’s my
In How Centralization Decisions Create Friction, Increase Cycle Time, and Cost Money, Part 1, I discussed how removing support staff for departments and managers created longer cycle times. (And sometimes, increased friction so much that people could not easily do their jobs.) Removing those support staff was one indication the companies fell into the Economies