Tag Archives: project management

Why is that guy still here…?

It’s Not the Person, It’s the Process A while ago, I over heard a product owner voicing his displeasure with a team member by asking, “Why is that guy still here?” Initially my adrenaline spiked as the pressure in my … Continue reading

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I Love my Teams!

I love managing and mentoring teams. Creating high performing teams out of groups of individuals has always been a major PM challenge and remains a distant dream for many. Discovering Agile Scrum offered just the framework I was looking for. … Continue reading

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Things I love

Today’s my wedding anniversary. The occasion gives opportunity to reflect on things I love. After many project management years, I ran into Agile Scrum. The simplicity of the framework caught my attention right away. Little did I realize what lies under … Continue reading

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How to Decompose a Release Plan – User Story Mapping

A while back my team overcommitted themselves on a technical debt Sprint. It became apparent we did not have a decent model to expose those pesky “unknown – unknowns”. No matter how much talking and diagramming and more talking we did, we … Continue reading

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How to Decompose Epics & Stories

Assigning Epics effort estimates is risky business. However, since organizations usually require schedules and budgets when uncertainty is at its highest, continuously defining effort as the decomposition process evolves may work. It must be remembered, no estimate is completely accurate but this process does … Continue reading

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Numbers, Time and Benchmarks

What do you value? Numbers and time are interesting. They have no value in themselves, but success is constantly measured by them. Sports teams, businesses, families and even religious organizations have their set of sacred numbers and times. Either is simply … Continue reading

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Project Cost Example

Important Please read the previous post explaining this model, before reviewing the example below. This example uses the following steps. Adds employee salary, benefits and contractor fees as cost variables. Calculates how much these variables cost each week. Sets highest number of story points … Continue reading

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Calculating Project Costs Using Story Points

Fibonacci Numbers & Dog Breeds? Managers using the cost accounting method to estimate projects are often lost when it comes to calculating the cost of Agile Scrum projects. Where the cost accounting method typically uses cost of time per project task as … Continue reading

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The Yin and Yang of “Hacktivism”

I ran across an interesting Ted Talk by Keren Elazari about hackers. She makes some bold statements such as, “…you just can’t see something broken in the world and leave it be.” She also states “I think we need hackers, … Continue reading

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Neutron Jack vs. Transcendent Teams

During his tenure as CEO at GE, Jack Welch popularized a “Rank and Yank policy” by firing the bottom 10% of his managers. Some argue the downside of his scorched earth team management methodology pressured employees to cut corners. This … Continue reading

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Book Review – Naked Statistics Stripping the Dread from the Data

Title – Naked Statistics Stripping the Dread from the Data Author – Charles Wheelan Publisher – W. W. Norton & Company Summary – The need for getting good data is widely understood. Bad numbers lead to bad decisions leading to bad … Continue reading

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Improper Planning – The Skeleton in the Closet

I had a long talk last week with a guy we will call Joe. He works for a company who has undertaken a large data conversion project. Mid way through that project the sponsors became very concerned about the project’s … Continue reading

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Software Development Risk Management Model

Quantifying elements that make up problems creates clear pathways to action. This sample Software Development Risk Management Model creates meaningful data offering “actionable” information. Continue reading

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