With the rush that was 2014 coming to a close, it’s time for the Top 10 year-end review. Even with unpredictable posting, Sockets and Lightbulbs continued to grow in 2014, with 81% more views and 35% more followers. Thank you so much! Reading, liking, commenting and sharing my posts mean a lot and boost my motivation to […]

Have you ever needed to make plans out of nothing? You know the situation: the project is barely defined, no one understands yet what needs to be done, and the team is still working on other projects. Still, you need to come up with a budget and build plans on a foundation of something more […]

  I first discovered Ilan’s Goldstein’s Scrum shortcuts on his blog where I quickly became a fan of his practical advice and personal stories from his years of experience implementing Scrum. Plus, the Scrumtroopers were a lot of fun. So I was delighted to learn he was writing a book that would expand on the nuggets […]

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 […]

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?

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 […]