Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

I have a new book: Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility. I wrote it because I'm concerned about what I see in too many supposedly agile teams: Crazy-long backlogs and roadmaps. Worse, sometimes the team doesn't demo or deliver. The post Tired of Fake Agility?

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Agile Productivity How To Management 85

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 6, 2024

In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency , where we watch the flow of the work , not the people doing tasks. Can you create an agile culture for your team even if you can't change how the organization works?

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Agile Culture Efficiency Metrics 81

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. As a manager, you can ask teams to collaborate. As a manager, while you might have a bunch of metrics, most of those measures don't help you manage. (

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Management Agile Metrics Video 92

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

They've started to use agile approaches. Capitalization for Agile Work. Let me walk you through an example of a 5-person agile team. So, let's assume the team spends a total of 4 hours planning, retrospecting, demoing, all that non-creation time out of the 40 hours the team works. (I Why Capitalize? Yeah, right.

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Johanna Rothman

DECEMBER 11, 2019

I spoke with a project manager recently. I used to facilitate project teams as a project manager. Why a project manager? When I learned to manage programs, I managed programs like that, too. Then, we went “all-Scrum” so my managers called me a Scrum Master. Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager?

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Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Strategy and Product Feedback Loops About 20 years ago, I taught a project management workshop to IT people. ” For years, I explained that the more often the team or program could demo, the more the project or program could engage its stakeholders. Demo that value on a regular cadence. Now, John Cutler has changed my mind.

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Johanna Rothman

JUNE 28, 2018

Many new-to-agile teams use some form of iteration-based agile approach. Back in Time You Spend in Agile Meetings (near the bottom of the post), I enumerated all the possible meetings. I mentioned how you could integrate the demo work into an iteration if you create a column for the demo.

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Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Many managers feel pressure to deliver finished work. The managers don't think they need to use data to replan frequently, to address what's happening. The managers plan for the teams, not with the teams. Worse, the managers don't deliver that finished work—the teams do. Reasons Managers Plan. Assess risks.

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 18, 2024

That's why Part 1 of this series discusses your value and what managers want and need. That part discusses why managers see agile coaches and Scrum Masters as staff positions, not line jobs. This post is about your deep domain expertise, first in product, then in agility. There way too many of you. If not, read it now.

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Agile How To Metrics Productivity 81

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 28, 2019

You can see demos. I wrote about how to define release criteria for the software (or hardware) part of the product in Manage It!, Agile and Lean Program Management , and in Create Your Successful Agile Project. Use Milestone Criteria in an Agile Way for an Agile Program. That's not the problem.

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 21, 2019

I started asking if you actually need an agile approach in Part 1 and noted the 4 big problems I see. Part 2 was why we need managers in an agile transformation. Part 4 was about how “Agile” is meaningless and “agile” is an adjective that needs to be applied to something.

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Johanna Rothman

APRIL 6, 2022

A colleague unfamiliar with lifecycles or agility asked, “How can we use sprints in this approach?” Not the thinking and learning that go into the deliverables where you end up with something demo-able, if not usable.” See Create Your Successful Agile Project for more details.). ” “Oooh.”

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Agile Productivity Finance Software 90

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 20, 2020

I discussed the origins of the agile approaches in Part 5. In this post, I'll discuss how you can create an agile approach that fits your context. Why should you create your own agile approach? You deserve an agile approach that helps you achieve the business outcomes you need. What do you need? Start with the Team.

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

They (the team) feel that the tasks for the sprint are too varied to manage to a single sprint goal. Instead, I see assumptions that reveal a divide-and-conquer, and possibly a command-and-control culture, not an agile culture. Agility requires a collaborative cross-functional team. Those two things do not make an agile team.

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Johanna Rothman

JUNE 25, 2018

Whenever I teach agile approaches, I discuss the possible meetings a team might choose. A demo once every two weeks. A demo once every two weeks. (I I prefer a demo every time you release a story, but that’s me. If you use kanban, you might integrate a demo into the board. No demo meetings necessary.

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 6, 2020

In Costs of an Agile Approach for Hardware Products , I suggested that an iteration-based approach for hardware was too expensive. Agile software teams are cross-functional and interdependent. Many agile software teams have somewhere between four and seven people. Hardware Costs Limit Agile Approaches.

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

Your managers are not yet. Your managers are stuck in what I call “how much” thinking: They want to see an estimate for “all” of it, regardless of when you might deliver the first piece of value. Managers need commitments and predictions for a number of excellent reasons. Release finished features often.

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Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

If you took an agile workshop sometime in the past 15 years, you probably played the “ ball game.” Especially since they've probably suffered through way too many “agile” workshops with more and more games. I explain the activity in this way: Your managers wanted you to fix this problem yesterday.

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2019

You have an agile roadmap to see where you're headed. 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. Your team hates having to translate the agile planning into more traditional planning. Placate the Manager.

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Johanna Rothman

APRIL 3, 2020

You might need to manage your delivery risks before you can manage to free time for the discovery risks. That leads to people using agile approaches to focus on delivery. Managers: please measure your decision cycle time as in Long Decision Wait Times and Unearth Your Project's Delays. Delivery Focuses on Technical Risks.

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Johanna Rothman

MARCH 22, 2023

Since I also write for project, program, and portfolio managers, you might not choose to read this post. Writers often need a different approach to manage everyone's expectations. How to Write for Secondary Readers Polly, a program manager, works with her program team to solve a cross-program problem: status reporting.

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Report Culture Sales Training 89

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. As a manager, you can ask teams to collaborate. As a manager, while you might have a bunch of metrics, most of those measures don't help you manage. (

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Management Agile Metrics Video 52

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 7, 2019

Many of my clients use an iteration-based agile approach. They have to manage extra work—work they had not estimated—in the form of an emergency or production support. One of the managers I coached asked this question, “Is there any way to estimate ‘right' for two weeks at a time?”

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Johanna Rothman

JUNE 17, 2021

I see too much micromanagement, even in supposedly agile organizations. 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. Other managers ask for status every day or multiple times a day.

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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. .” Brooks also said on p.

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 27, 2023

might demo the feature. That defect escaped all your checklists, approvals, and demos. See What Lifecycle or Agile Approach Fits Your Context? At first, management told them they were “too slow.” Not all the managers agreed with me, but that was okay. The customer finds a problem, a defect.

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Johanna Rothman

JULY 27, 2022

I only wrote those business cases for the first couple of years I managed projects. Because experiments manage risk, we need people with these perspectives to create the experiments: A product leader: someone who can see where the company wants to head with this product. Does that mean the portfolio team should watch the demos?

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

Because features change in value and because some feature sets need to deliver value on a more regular basis, the real roadmap looks more like this graphic, “When the Agile Roadmap Changes.” They noted MVPs and demos on their roadmap—a new idea for them. Part 6: Managers Want Commitments. Part 7: Summary.

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Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Nor do the teams demo on a regular basis. The teams miss the feedback loops so critical for an agile approach. Their agile transformation falls apart. Let's think about how to create agile projects with short feedback loops, not projects that look like waterfall. Prevent Agile Projects that Look Like Waterfall.

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Agile Productivity Retail Management 58

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 28, 2018

In Part 1 , I suggested that when we organize by function, the recognition and rewards might prevent a successful agile transformation. The senior manager has P&L (Profit and Loss) responsibility for the entire product line, including Product Management (for this product line), Customer Support, Training, etc.

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Productivity Agile Efficiency Management 65

Johanna Rothman

JULY 31, 2019

Early on in my agile practice, I believed in generalizing specialists. Here's how this might work for your agile team. You don't have an agile team because they're not collaborating on the work. Hooks for logs and demos. Anything else that makes development, testing, demo, and release easier.

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Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

They (the team) feel that the tasks for the sprint are too varied to manage to a single sprint goal. That's why I wrote a chapter about meetings in Manage It! In Create Your Successful Agile Project , I recommend the team end an iteration in the middle of a week. You might be using an agile approach, but it's not Scrum.

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 25, 2023

I also said I don't blame the managers for wanting to know. But instead of placating the managers and trying to estimate, consider starting with this question: How do you plan to use this information? Now, we get to the meat, where the manager needs to know to feel good about the development. I needed to demo more often.

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Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2023

The longer the backlog, the less agile you can be, because no one's incorporating learning into the work. If your managers want you to predict any date, make sure you offer at least three dates: Possible, Likely, and Pessimistic. Create a weekly cadence of public demos. All the work will look as if it will take forever.

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Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 16, 2019

Many of my clients are trying to use short feedback loops in agile approaches. That desire bumps up against their management's desires for longer commitments. It's not useful for management to ask the team to provide larger commitments, as in “how long will this feature set take?” The feature set will change.

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Productivity Agile Management Analysis 60

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 26, 2024

” There's more in Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management.) That's why I wrote Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility. ) In addition, I ask teams to show visual progress , such as in a demo. I suspect their teams hide their feedback loops.

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How To Metrics Tools Productivity 70

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 5, 2018

Agile approaches can help a team release more often. The longer the team goes without a demo, the less replanning anyone can do. The post Frequent Releasing Can Lead to Short and Frequent Planning appeared first on Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant. The project portfolio people can replan the project portfolio.

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