In many companies and industries there has been a trend to combine “management” roles in an effort to reduce costs or improve efficiency. Personally, I first noticed this trend with combining project management and functional management roles. The reasoning is that any competent manager should be able to handle the project management duties for their […]

Managers love pie charts. Unfortunately, my initiation to the Dark Side did not include the Handbook of the Art of Pie Charts. When I see a pie chart in a presentation I usually wonder “What’s up with this pie chart?” or “What is this really trying to tell me?” It usually flashes up on the […]

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?

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 […]

As projects wrap-up and start-up, you may have the challenge of accommodating end-of-project vacations, hiring new team members and reforming teams to best meet the needs of the new project.  Teams should be kept together as projects move in and out, but that is not always possible, particularly in some industries. To help you visualize […]

“Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr After reading my post on how not to implement Agile, a friend asked me to write a post about discipline and discuss whether it […]