W. Edwards Deming, credited with launching the Total Quality Management movement, wasn’t a fan of Management by Walking Around.
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Category Archives: Musing
TPM – Project Manager who is technical or technical person who manages?
I squirm when I see a job description for a “Technical Project Manager (TPM)”. My experience is that an organisation advertising for a TPM is often confused about what they are looking for. Do they mean a project manager who is technical or a technical person who provides some coordination? Often you’ll find both types in the same “project management” team.
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How to get Agile experience as a project manager? Just start
Tim felt in a Catch-22 situation. He wanted to break into Agile, however, without experience he had little chance of landing a job running an Agile project. He felt stuck and wanted help to find a way forward. My advice – just start.
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Little’s Law – the basis of Lean and Kanban
Sometimes I think it helps to go back to basics. And when using Lean Software Development, including Kanban, that means a man called Little and his Law. “Little’s Law” is a fundamental of queue theory and defines the relationship between Work in Progress (WIP), Throughput and Lead Time. It is the reason why Kanban teams try to limit WIP.
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4Ls Retro Format – Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for
I’m always on the hunt for formats for a Retrospective. The latest one we’re going to try is the 4Ls – Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for.
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I hate part time assignments to projects; they challenge WIP limits
I hate part time assignments – when I see people being asked to split their time across projects. Where ever possible I try to get people full time on one thing at a time.
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I always work with a “Product Owner”; never a “Scrum Product Owner”
I’ve previously had a poke at the Scrum Product Owner role when I called it Scrum’s Uber-Pig. Now I have to admit that, although I always work with a “Product Owner”, I never work with a “Scrum Product Owner”. In fact, given my own responsibilities, I can never work with a Scrum Product Owner.
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Don’t use the Formal User Story Format for Minor Modifications
Kim Daubney asked what to do when the story isn’t a new requirement but a UI change. Kim wanted to know if the “as a, i want, so that” format is still required? Short answer is “no”.
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ERIC Grid – Blue Ocean Strategy for Departmental Transformation
It is always interesting to see how other people approach a task that in other circumstances I would be doing. So I was quite interested to see the ERIC Grid used to shape a transformation initiative.
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Trust Needs to be Earned
Jim, a previous boss of mine, once said to me “You don’t trust anybody”. It isn’t true. I do trust people but I don’t give my trust away easily. People have to earn it. And I don’t trust categorically – there is always a limit to my trust. As the programme manager I can’t afford to offer more.
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