Category: Management & Leadership

  • The Shorter Timescale

    I’m reading a very scary book right now: Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates. It’s a funny and informative look at how philosophers and religious thinkers deal with death. I don’t want to be a spoiler but the basic message of the book is that most people live in denial of their…

  • True Working-ness

    Last week I presented to my team at Lime Wire Agile and Scrum in all it’s most excellent glory. Jason Herskowitz, Lime Wire’s VP of Product Management, and I ran though all the major Agile elements and vocabulary words. The best part of the presentation was questions asked by developers, testers, system admins, product managers,…

  • The Name of the Game is Change

    The second principle from the Agile Manifesto is “Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.” I call this the Product Manager’s dream principle: “I get to change the requirements, even after development has started! Woot!” First let’s break this principle down and see what it really…

  • Our Highest Priority

    The first principle of the Agile Manifesto is “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” Easier said than done 🙂 This principle is deceptively simple and simply radical. I don’t believe it’s an accident that it’s the first principle and it’s first 3 words ensure that…

  • Circular Logic in Project Management

    Listening to one of my favorite public radio programs (The World) while carting the kids around this weekend I heard about an interesting study by the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. A team of biocyberneticists wanted to find out how well people navigated. They hired a bunch of hikers, gave them each a GPS,…

  • Not So S.M.A.R.T

    The original requirement for S.M.A.R.T. objectives I’ve been managing technical people since 1989 (currently at Conductor). It’s surprising how challenging and entertaining it remains. You would think by now I had it all figured out. After 20 years I should have written a book on the subject with a catchy title like “Who Moved My…