Too Much Reverence

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I recently started managing a QA team that tested multiple products. I was glad to find I had gained a good team that needed a few adjustments to get on track. Thru meetings, both one-on-one and in groups, I got to know the members and their habits and quirks, some of which really required a change of mindset.

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Journey Towards Agile

Recently my manager asked me if I wanted to attend a software conference in Orlando. Although it was all very last minute I was glad to take him up on it. When I asked if there was anything particular I should watch out for he said “learn all you can about Agile, we may be doing it soon”. I was also asked to prepare a presentation on the topic.

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Back To The Future

A while ago I was asked to take the position of QA manager of a product line that had run into problems. This line consisted of several different products including one that I had worked on for many years and managed for some time. Admittedly I was a bit reluctant to take to take the position, there was another one I was much more interested in that would represent a new direction for my career and use a different set of skills. Plus I did not want to be perceived as taking a step backwards. Upper Management turned on the charm and assured me this was not a backwards step, they really needed my help in straightening out the team. They wanted me to bring the creativity I had demonstrated when I was a team member before (Their words BTW) back and help get things moving again. To make a long story short I agreed to take the position, took a little time to study up on the products and wrote up some ‘creative’ ideas. (more…)

The Problem with Performance Reviews

Probably everyone accepts that a business rarely has the same priorities during an extended period when performance objectives apply, whether it’s 6 months, 12 months, or some other duration, right? Unless you’re in a very long-established business (and even then, departmental priorities can change focus over such durations), it’s likely that what priorities you understood (and negotiated with your manager) at the start of a performance period will morph over the course of that review period, and be out of date at the end of the review period.

This is all common sense. We know this. Yet we all seem to “live the lie” and pretend this is OK and fair for performance evaluation & review.

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Everything I Know about Management I Learned as an Orchestra Conductor

There’s been an oft-repeated observation that there’s a high incidence of classically trained musicians in the software industry. I’ve seen this myself; it’s not hard to identify enough people for a jam session or chamber ensemble in any association meeting here in Silicon Valley.

I had the good fortune to be trained in orchestral conducting at Stanford University under Andor Toth and his senior students back when I was looking for interesting non-mainstream courses to round out my degree program. Even before then, I’d spent years organizing and enjoying string quartets with friends, since I was an early teen.

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Moving Beyond the Triple Constraints

Dave Garrett recently wrote on the concepts expressed by Aaron Shanhar in his book, Reinventing Project Management. The gist is that the common triple-constraint model of managing cost, schedule, and scope is not enough. As I like to put it and in Goldratt’s words, necessary but not sufficient.

I have not yet read Shanhar’s book, but have a few initial thoughts based on Garrett’s description.
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40 Years Ago

40 years ago this December, something extraordinary was offered to us. It became known as the “mother of all demos” (MOAD): Douglas Engelbart showed the world what collaboration could look like in this new world empowered by the technology that can connect each of us. He had not only seen the future decades before everyone else, but had brought it to the world.

What are projects anyway than the state-of-the-practice of collaboration? Forming projects is how we collaborate. We work together toward defined objectives, with acknowledged rules of engagement on tasks and completion criteria. The problems we solve are greater than those that single individuals can achieve; that’s why project teams are formed.

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