“Can Agile be used for data science research projects?” An architect at a local research-heavy technology company posted that question in our community Slack channel. My immediate reaction was “Of course!”, but I didn’t post an answer. While I have led R&D teams, the work we did was more development than research. I was only […]

The following comment was submitted on one of my blog articles. It’s quite a rant about Agile, so I thought it was worth addressing as a full post. Agile is not always implemented in a good way or at the point in the life of an application/product where it can be useful and not disruptive. […]

A recent Management Essentials training session at work encouraged us to reflect on our experiences rather than just gave us a bunch of management tips out of context.  I have always learned a lot by observing others and I have long said that even less than stellar managers shaped who I am today. One of the exercises was […]

What would you think if your boss told you that the team was going out into the middle of nowhere for a team building event and to be sure to dress warmly?  What would you expect?  During the first three weeks of my new job, I had the privilege to participate in what turned out […]

I caught up with an old friend one evening while I was on a business trip in southern California earlier this week.  After spending most of her career in larger companies with mature processes, she had recently joined a company still in the start-up phase.  While she has learned to appreciate that “putting steel in […]

Last week Bloomberg published an article about Cisco Systems that made me sad.  It describes the effects of a management process put in place shortly after I left the company.  According to the article, it has slowed down the company, led to executive resignations and damaged the predictability of quarterly results.  For those of you […]