Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 31, 2024

In my experience, this might require a facilitative project manager who acts as the “Wall Around the Team,” protecting the team from external mayhem. The goal to release the product. When the team can focus on the product, as a cross-functional team, they can create some agility. That's fine.

Agile 71

Agile Metrics Efficiency Culture 71

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

JULY 27, 2022

So they ask the product or project leaders to write a business case for each effort. I only wrote those business cases for the first couple of years I managed projects. Depending on the product, an architectural leader: someone who has been thinking about the various design tradeoffs for the entire product.

ROI 93

ROI Productivity Management Tools 93

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 105

Agile Tools Productivity Development 105

Johanna Rothman

APRIL 6, 2022

Every sprint delivers working product.” Not the thinking and learning that go into the deliverables where you end up with something demo-able, if not usable.” They do have product goals. However, they don't deliver value, have team-based planning, a review/demo, or a retrospective. ” “Oooh.”

Agile 90

Agile Productivity Finance Software 90

Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 16, 2019

That desire bumps up against their management's desires for longer commitments. High Need for Product Innovation and Change. The more need for product innovation and change, the shorter the feedback loops need to be. When the product requires much innovation and change, management doesn't need estimates.

Productivity 60

Productivity Agile Management Analysis 60

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. I assume you have some sort of functional product development expertise. If not, why are you in technical product development?

Agile 81

Agile How To Metrics Productivity 81

Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 5, 2021

Many managers want to know the answers to these questions: When will we see the first bit? That might be the feature set or the product. ). Your team manages its WIP. However, maybe this is a new product for you and you don't quite know how to do that yet. Your managers are asking you to give them the 50% confidence date.

Guidelines 125

Guidelines Productivity Data Management 125

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 113

Agile Productivity Management Development 113

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 117

Agile Development Productivity Management 117

Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

I have a new book: Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility. Worse, sometimes the team doesn't demo or deliver. See Manage Unplanned Feedback Loops to Reduce Risks and Create Successful Products.) That's because no product survives contact with the customers.

Agile 85

Agile Productivity How To Management 85

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. Those people work independently until they need to verify the product as a whole, works. This hardware team swarms on a product. You can use an agile approach for parts of a hardware product.

Agile 52

Agile Productivity Software Development 52

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 24, 2022

No one wants to demo this work, because everyone thinks the demo will wander all over the place. Worse, no one wants to demo, because they can't see the value for any user. Use the Demo to Guide Sizing. Use the Demo to Guide Sizing. Start with the demo in mind. I bet you can think of more tests.

Efficiency 58

Efficiency Productivity Consulting Management 58

Johanna Rothman

JANUARY 10, 2024

When I work with these teams or their managers, I realize they're not demoing or retrospecting on a regular basis. Worse, these people and teams don't feel any satisfaction with their products. The managers worry that the teams can't finish “anything on time.” That creates distrust and an anti-agile culture.

Agile 88

Agile Culture Efficiency Management 88

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? By product, where they assign a team to a product for a long period of time. Here's the bad news.

How To 78

How To Productivity Agile Management 78

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

APRIL 3, 2020

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

Agile 102

Agile Data Productivity Management 102

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 95

Agile Analysis Management Productivity 95

Johanna Rothman

OCTOBER 7, 2019

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? I see these problems a lot when the product owner has feature-itis.

Management 58

Management Agile Productivity Analysis 58

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Back in Part 1 of this series, I explained all the problems I saw with this interview question: “The product owner and dev team cannot decide on a sprint goal, even after hours of discussion. They (the team) feel that the tasks for the sprint are too varied to manage to a single sprint goal. What should the Scrum Master do?”

Leadership 89

Leadership Meeting Agile Productivity 89

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

I started this series with many specific concerns about a particular interview question: “The product owner and dev team cannot decide on a sprint goal, even after hours of discussion. They (the team) feel that the tasks for the sprint are too varied to manage to a single sprint goal. And these managers have not read the Scrum Guide.

Interviews 96

Interviews Culture Agile Efficiency 96

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

MARCH 6, 2024

They are: Understand the various risks: project, product, and organization, and how to manage those risks with feedback loops. Let's start with risks and how feedback loops manage those risks. And product development has at least these risks: Project-based risks, so we can make effective tradeoffs. Every effort has risks.

Agile 81

Agile Culture Efficiency Metrics 81

Johanna Rothman

JULY 27, 2023

In addition, a product leader might approve the feature. Finally, the team, a product leader, or the customer(!) might demo the feature. That defect escaped all your checklists, approvals, and demos. Yes, they had to spend time fixing those problems, but they were under no illusions about the quality of the product.

How To 81

How To Agile Productivity Data 81

Johanna Rothman

SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

You know you need more feedback and resilience in your project/program, so you’ve created a product value team to reassess the roadmap on a regular basis. Your managers are not yet. Managers need commitments and predictions for a number of excellent reasons. They need to plan on revenue from products and services.

Agile 53

Agile Management Productivity Training 53

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 18, 2021

Management can't hire people for the same salaries they used to pay.). Or, that while managers might want people “back” in the office, not everyone wants to work in an office. Worst of all, too many managers still want to micromanage people—and that's more difficult when people aren't in the office.

Software 95

Software Talent Meeting Tools 95

Business Consulting Agency

OCTOBER 11, 2024

However, managing operations in a new country can be challenging, especially when done remotely. Here’s how these services can empower companies to manage US markets remotely and succeed. Find out here how managing US markets remotely and successfully is possible.

Marketing 52

Marketing Management Retail Media 52

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 75

Leadership Agile Management Training 75

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 26, 2024

In innovative products, the interdependencies can change any day. ” There's more in Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management.) If your product does not need much innovation, you can plan for longer and know you will meet that plan. See Three Tips to Focus to Deliver Better Products Faster.

How To 70

How To Metrics Tools Productivity 70

Johanna Rothman

JUNE 28, 2018

I mentioned how you could integrate the demo work into an iteration if you create a column for the demo. Here’s a picture of how you might create a kanban with a Demo state, just before the Done column. Here’s how you walk this board: Start at the column just before Done, the Demo column.

Agile 51

Agile Meeting System Productivity 51

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 6, 2024

I like to ask them to choose a challenging production support problem, or something else that's making them nuts. I explain the activity in this way: Your managers wanted you to fix this problem yesterday. Show a demo of whatever you complete at the 15-minute mark. Something they want to address now. No extra planning time.

Agile 75

Agile How To Exercises Efficiency 75

Johanna Rothman

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Let's assume everyone works together, on one project (product, if you prefer). 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 would add demoing in as value creation, but I'm not sure how accountants categorize feedback loops.

Software 74

Software Agile Finance Company 74

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

Jerry Fletcher

FEBRUARY 6, 2021

I was zooming today with the founder of an organization using Mighty Networks as the software they use to manage their expanding community. Here’s how I stay connected and still manage to keep my business thriving: I plan my weeks to assure blocks of time for clients. Don’t waste production time. Lots of content. And so it goes.

Marketing 98

Marketing Consulting Video Course 98

Johanna Rothman

MARCH 28, 2019

You've got interdependencies across the organization for a given project or program to release a product. You can see demos. You need enough insight or prediction to start the marketing campaign or to create training videos or product documentation. Release criteria tells you when a product is done.

Agile 63

Agile Productivity Software Marketing 63

Women in Consulting

JANUARY 11, 2018

First consultants eliminated were ME CENTERED …they dominated the conversation, told all about their processes, products, past clients. They quoted all of the latest management books, they were able to quote facts from all of the top surveys and analysis, they had a quote, a fact and the references to back up everything they said.

Consulting 63

Consulting Productivity Survey Analysis 63

Johanna Rothman

AUGUST 28, 2023

In Part 2 , I suggested the product leader/team/some combination, have a conversation to understand the context for the request. Worse, long backlogs tend to mean that teams become feature factories, instead of focusing on the overarching goal for this product. Create a weekly cadence of public demos.

Agile 75

Agile How To Productivity Management 75