Because it speaks so much to my values, my all-time favourite management/leadership book is First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. It’s not so much that I am a rebel, breaking rules whenever I want. It’s because the book is based on a 25-year Gallup study on what great managers do: […]

It’s remarkable how many people are accidental managers. These are people who became managers because they happened to be around when there was a need to put a manager in place. There just as many others who choose to become managers because of dreams of how it “should” be or pressure from family and friends. […]

Who owns quality for your product? Whenever I ask that question, I am often met with one or more of the following reactions: A blank stare “Testing/Quality Assurance/Quality Control, of course!” “Management.” (lots of variations on that) “Creative/technical leadership.” So, maybe the better question is: Who defines quality?

Have you ever worked with a manager who was a poor listener? Or have you worked with a team that has trouble listening to each other? If so, then you know how frustrating it can be when the people around you don’t seem to be listening. Teamwork is dysfunctional. Debates occur even when people are […]

Mission for today: find one positive thing happening at work and tell people, including your manager, about it. Ever notice how fast bad news travels around the office? What gets shared first: problems or successes? Particularly on difficult projects, most conversations about work tend to be focussed on the problems being solved rather than successes […]

At some point in every project something will go wrong. A component doesn’t work. A supplier fails. A key team member quits. The design doesn’t work. The client drops the project. The team goes into crisis mode, upset at the situation and running in multiple directions to fix it. Once you understand the anatomy of […]