I view Delivery, Product and Technical as the three legs of software management stool. I have people responsible for these elements at both programme and project/team level.
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Tag Archives: roles and responsibilities
Shaping a team – Get good people and put them in the right role
“When will Stu stop playing with code?” The question was about Stu Fieldhouse, a Technical Project Manager working on my programme. My answer was “Never”. I had brought Stu in exactly because he plays with code. Or, more constructively, he fixes problems and lets us move on. Fast.
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Need an unsolvable problem solved? Call in the Development Paratrooper
A guy walked up to me and said “I hear you’ve got a problem with Flash”. I hadn’t met him before but I’d heard about him. Mike Brown the Development Paratrooper.
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A U in UX
Obvious, right. Well, perhaps not. After all, what is UX anyway? I have many conversations on this topic, with developers and UX designers, and I never seem to get the same answers. I find that both fascinating, and a little frustrating, and I’m very aware that the feeling’s mutual! I have a simplistic view on this, fortunately for me it aligns with the definition that pops up when you Google (other search engines are available) “what is ux”.
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What is the optimal number of manual testers in a development team? Zero?
To have manual testers, or not to have manual testers, that is the question. Typically I have one per team: Less than many teams but more than some organisations get away with.
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Are you leading or just going for a walk?
If you fancy yourself as a leader, have a glance behind you … is anybody following? Are you leading or just going for a walk?
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Look for Product Owners in the Business
You cannot lead what you don’t understand so I often recruit product owners from the business.
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Delivery Manager – A new role for an Agile world
Rich Lewis is the best I’ve worked with. When I met him he was a Business Analyst who, on the sly, was Scrum Master of a small team. He was good at this but capable of much more. I invited him to be the Delivery Manager on the programme I was running at the time.
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Product Owner – leader, facilitator or unnecessary overhead?
Daniel Markham thinks the Product Owner is “the perfect scam in the Agile community” and recommends getting rid of the role. This might work for highly functioning teams working in highly functioning organisations, but for not normal teams. For normal teams in normal organisations the Product Owner performs a valuable role as a facilitator and, if you are lucky, a leader.
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I Only Trust Architects That Code
I only trust architects that code. Who have skin in the game. Who will suffer personally if they make the wrong architectural decisions. Who will dive in to fix any problems that arise from their decisions.
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