I see too many teams feel frustrated because their managers say the work takes “too long.” (The team feedback loop is the inside of the onion for how agile the organization can be. See Multiple Short Feedback Loops Support Innovation.) The longer the work takes, the more pressure managers exert on the team and the […]
A project portfolio manager contacted me via LinkedIn. The question: How can this portfolio team start to manage the project portfolio when the organization has 600 projects? Right now, the portfolio team is supposed to read the status decks for each of those 600, to understand each project’s status. How to start? That’s an impossible
We often think that finishing a story from the backlog is “just” tactical. However, the more often we deliver in short feedback loops, the more often we can make strategic decisions. Finishing a story creates a new decision point, for both the product and the corporate strategy. The more often we iterate strategically, the more
Dan, a VP, knows he needs more people to get the work done. Suzanne, one of the directors, starts to hire and realizes she has several problems. First, their salary bands are too low—candidates want more money. In addition, the people want to collaborate more than the existing people seem to. She meets with Dan
Did you ever work on a project that dragged on and on, slipping a week every week? Back in the day, we called those projects “death marches.” I never saw anyone literally die, but I saw too many divorces, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and very dissatisfied and unhappy employees and customers. Waterfall projects can
Here’s a scenario I see in all kinds of businesses. Your team has product-focused work. And, the team also has “fast” response-required, ad hoc work: Production support, when something breaks. You need to fix this right away. Provide technical support when people have questions. The team needs to answer these questions on a “timely” basis.
Three Tips to Move from Certainty to Openness Dan, a senior manager, sees the end of the organization’s traditional business lines. He thinks they have a few good years with their current customers and products. However, he’s sure the company needs to find another way to meet their customers’ needs. And probably, acquire more and
Create Your Peer Management Team for Fun and Profit (and to Solve Problems) Do you wonder how to get more done in your organization? Your teams are working pretty well, delivering at a reasonable pace. Yet, you have the nagging feeling you could get more done. You can. The secret is management teams, not just
Michael Mahlberg taught me something cool last week. We’re writing an article together. Part of the article is about forecasts. I was ranting and raving about how to help people see their confidence levels. He pointed me to this slideshare: Lightweight Kanban Metrics (in German). (Don’t worry about the language.) Go to slides 24, 25,
Three Ideas to Boost Your Productivity Several Pragmatic Manager subscribers have asked me about how to build and maintain their productivity. They say they have these problems: The longer they work apart from other people, the less they have the “peer pressure” of a collaborative schedule. They find it hard to maintain focus for a long time.