Archive for 2010
Dealing with negativity in the team
You are leading a star project team working on a challenging project when you noticed a particular team member spreading negativity, rumors among peers. You are afraid this negative behavior will bring whole team’s morale down. What would you do in this situation? Every individual is different, and every situation is going to require a different response, but here are a few strategies that can bring the situation back to an even keel.
Do hackers make the best testers?
The most valuable asset a Software Tester can have is an attitude of gleeful problem discovery. Someone that loves to break systems, discover their imperfections, and explore their weaknesses makes a great tester. But, to be really good, a product tester really has to care about the quality of the product.
Successfully applying lessons learned
Capturing lessons learned at the end of a project sounds like a great idea. Who wouldn’t want to reflect on what was done right, what could be done better, and then apply those lessons to the next project? Unfortunately, few organizations take the time to build the right kind of lessons learned system, and that means critical information is being lost.
“The key to a successful project is in the planning,” or is it?
Is the key to a successful project in the planning, as the axiom goes… or have we already been lost in the trees? My problem with this is that it’s a very narrow, incomplete answer to a much larger scope problem. Creating the project plan is important, but it’s not “the” key to project success [...]
Managing risk in global projects
One of the most significant risks we identify is a globally disparate (geographically separated) team. Teams working in separate regions face tremendous challenges that a co-located team doesn’t have to think about, a situation made worse when outsourcing, where conflicts in language, time, culture, and business environment all affect the organization.
Doing away with ineffective, broken risk management
Risk management has become mainstream. It’s no longer the domain of rocket scientists and actuaries. In fact, it’s become so mainstream that formal risk management practices are showing up everywhere we look. But is all this sudden attention to risk management going in the right direction? Or are recently defined risk management methods just introducing unproven, sometimes crackpot solutions into a well-understood space? Find out why Harvard Business Review found that “Most of the management tools and techniques we studied had no direct causal relationship to superior business performance.”
The obituary exercise
Get your team to write an obituary for your project — before you start the project. Make it part of your risk planning exercise. This exercise is related to the Merlin backward planning exercise and is also used in the Toyota Production System. Toyota used the obituary approach when creating their “Toyota University” program and engaged [...]
When there’s a freeloader on your team
According to extensive research The Gallup Organization (Washington D.C.) and Harvard Business Review have conducted over the past decade, few factors are as corrosive to employee engagement as a colleague who skates through the workweek taking advantage of the much harder work of others. What’s the cost of disengagement? Much more than any manager wants [...]
Is Scrum Master Certification Hurting Our Industry?
Having created a methodology that tightly integrates Scrum concepts, I tend to be a strong proponent of Scrum. But being a strong proponent doesn’t extend so far as to promote all the hype — I’m also a very strong believer in the value of formal education and the need for experience. After seeing the negative [...]
Be human on your “about page”
Seth Godin offers some good advice regarding your company image: “When someone comes to your site for the first time, they’re likely to hit ‘about’ or ‘bio’. Why? Because they want a human, a story and reassurance.” Don’t use meaningless jargon, talk like a normal person, and if you put up a picture don’t use [...]
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