Michael Harmer (via Clarke Ching) has two posts that illustrate Jerry Weinberg’s idea that “quality is value to some person.” When customer priorities aren’t explicit, developers will (naturally enough) fill in the blanks based on their own values. Diana Larsen talks about creating that understanding up front in the project charter by defining management tests.
[rant] Last week I heard someone espousing a new form of project review called a Retrospective. Here’s what she advised: Anonymous feedback via survey or questionnaire Ranking of questionnaire results Functional groups discussing questionnaire results in isolation Tightly controlled discussion of topics selected by the facilitator Limited participation (enforced by the facilitator) Lists of “good”
I’ve been thinking a lot about two conversations I had about bosses. Both of women I talked to were experienced managers in a software organization. The first woman, Susan, has a reputation as a solid manager who produces results. She’s spent the last 10 years building solid teams, mentoring the people in her group, and
Once upon a time I worked for a large corporation. One of the managers there prided herself on being on the go. She was a constant whirlwind and ran between meetings (literally). She felt busy and important. If effective management were measured by busy-ness, she would have been the queen. But it isn’t and she
In response to my post on shared commitment, Effern posted this comment: …”leaving early when everyone was made to work OT is a fantastic way to bring down team morale.” Effern‘s comment got me thinking. I suspect that the low morale isn’t simply the result of one person leaving early, but stems from something more
I’m back from Austria (with a side trip to Budapest — many thanks to Istvan Fay for showing us the highlights of Buda). It was a fabulous trip! I’ll be posting bits as I sort through and integrate. I was stuck by something Diana Larsen said in her talk on self-organizing teams at the Scrum
I’m off to Vienna for the first ever Scrum Gathering and the 3rd annual Retrospective Facilitators Gathering (I was one of the original conveners). Both events are informal…we’ll focus on having the conversations that will help move the practice forward. Hard duty, but someone has to do it I hope to be able to post
A while back I did some work for a company that prided itself on being a “process organization.” One of directors was particularly remarkable. He was receiving an average of 130 pages a month related to problems in the production systems. That was after the issues had been filter through 1st level support, 2nd level
I ran into some of my rules last week… you know…. rules like “I must always be able to think of a solution when someone asks me for help.” Obviously that’s not possible, but rules don’t work that way. Most of our rules were cemented into place before we were adults, so they are not
Here are two interesting statistics: 92% of senior executives and managers say they communicate very well with subordinates on the subject of how the subordinates work fits in with overall company strategy. 59% of managers surveyed reported that their managers reported “very” or “somewhat” well. (Both from this article on Darwinmag.com.) I bet that this