Johanna Rothman

MARCH 30, 2020

Are you a manager accustomed to Management by Walking Around and Listening (MBWAL) ? You have an opportunity to work differently as a manager. If you're creating products of any kind—especially software products—you've got a team sport. The better the team learns together, the better the product is.

Management 92

Management Agile Metrics Video 92

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 27, 2020

Do you need feedback loops so you can: Cancel the project at any time (to manage schedule and cost risks. Assess technical risks so you can rework the architecture or design to manage feature set risks. Manage what you release to customers so you can manage defect, feature set, schedule, and cost risks.

Agile 101

Agile Culture Productivity Management 101

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Back in the 1990s, I worked as a hands-on program manager for a 12-person team. Some of the dysfunction was due to the culture, which discouraged collaboration. The previous manager had focused on resource efficiency, not flow efficiency , so everyone had “their” own work. That's what it feels like to people.)

Agile 109

Agile Culture Efficiency Development 109

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 24, 2021

I suspected I would learn about engagement with my next questions about management patterns. Management Patterns That Might Cause a Team to Miss “Deadlines” I find two general buckets of problems for missing deadlines: how management organizes teams and the “need” for certain measures.

Agile 85

Agile Meeting Software Government 85

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 19, 2021

Example 1: Startup/Small Organization with Few Products. They offer their product in two versions: Pro and Lite. The first was not waiting for the end of an iteration to demo or release. They demo'd every week on Wednesday mornings and then they released after the demo. The managers like the quarterly planning.

Agile 104

Agile Tools Productivity Development 104

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

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 a product organization would look, but this is a possibility. What do you do?

Productivity 65

Productivity Agile Efficiency Management 65

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 30, 2020

Are you a manager accustomed to Management by Walking Around and Listening (MBWAL) ? You have an opportunity to work differently as a manager. If you're creating products of any kind—especially software products—you've got a team sport. The better the team learns together, the better the product is.

Management 52

Management Agile Metrics Video 52

Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 30, 2021

The post image is my chasm image from Manage It! The closer to the left your products are, the more your managers might be open to changing their behaviors and the culture. TL; DR: “Stop making it harder” is a culture problem. The design reviews were about the integrity of the product and the code.

Culture 125

Culture Management Productivity Agile 125

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 2, 2023

” It depends on how your lifecycle manages feedback loops and learning, how collaborative the team is, and how much WIP the team has. Each Lifecycle Manages Feedback Loops Differently Brooks wrote the original version of The Mythical Man-Month in 1975, based on the 1960s IBM 360 project. What does management choose to do?

Agile 94

Agile Analysis Management Productivity 94

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2019

And, someone on your team keeps a Gantt chart because a manager wants to see the team's progress in a form they feel comfortable with. If you're in this pickle, your manager might think your agile team doesn't replan very often. That manager might assume your team uses an agile approach only as a way to deliver.

Data 68

Data Agile Culture Management 68

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 12, 2020

Once the team completes that highest priority feature(s), the team can release the product. When we release, we can regroup and figure out what to do next for this product. Fork another product. (I I did this with several Lite vs Pro products using this approach.). See and demo the product as it grows.

Agile 112

Agile Productivity Management Development 112

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 8, 2020

The spiral model assumes that if you get feedback early enough, you've managed the technical and requirements risks. I had to explain to my managers how the project would work. My managers were smart but didn't understand how to spiral time. Once our customers saw demos, they wanted to change things. Manage customer risk.

Agile 116

Agile Development Productivity Management 116

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 24, 2023

For years, we've used several metaphors to describe software product development: People-based metaphors, such as: Man-weeks for all the humans working on a project or a product. The first time a manager asked me how many man-weeks my work would take, I said, “Zero. Demo inside the organization.

Construction 78

Construction Resources Productivity Development 78

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 17, 2021

” When we have insufficient trust, morale and the products deteriorate. Instead, we can extend trust and keep innovating for morale and the products. This image shows a 6-person team where the leader/manager micromanages. Some managers want to stay “relevant,” so they work on the technical work.

Leadership 74

Leadership Agile Management Training 74

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 20, 2020

Because your context is unique to you, your team, project, product, and culture. And, with any luck, nudges the culture in a good direction for your team, project, and product. Why Do You Want an Agile Culture for Your Product? Notice I said the culture is for this particular product.

Agile 60

Agile Culture Productivity Development 60

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Your customers can't take your product more often than once or twice a year. Because the product doesn't need to leave the building, the teams don't release internally. Nor do the teams demo on a regular basis. What if we thought of all these people as customers: The various people who buy the product. Colleagues?).

Agile 58

Agile Productivity Retail Management 58

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 21, 2019

Part 2 was why we need managers in an agile transformation. This post is about what you can do to create an agile culture, regardless of where you are in the organization. BTW: One more thing about an agile culture: Many of the people I spoke with at the conference are convinced they need to “scale.”

Agile 65

Agile Culture Efficiency Guidelines 65

Harvard Business

OCTOBER 20, 2016

If the Microsoft board was managing for quarter-to-quarter or even year-to year-revenue growth, Ballmer was as good as it gets as a CEO. Projects not directly related to those activities never got serious resource or management attention. They are hard to do in a company that excels at products. The result?

Operations 28

Operations Productivity Software Talent 28

Harvard Business

APRIL 19, 2016

To account for its success, many point to America’s entrepreneurial culture, its tolerance for failure and its unique ecosystem of venture funding. So for companies looking to create revolutionary products, identifying and accessing cutting edge, exploratory research is a key competitive advantage. ” We need to move faster.

Research 28

Research Company Conference Biotechnology 28