This Focused Performance Weblog started life as a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective, but is in the process of evolving towards primary content on interactive and mobile marketing. Think of it as about Focusing marketing messages for enhanced Performance. If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Linkage: Johanna and Esther -- You may have noticed a core group of blogs and sites that I tend to link to. Obviously they are the one's I read. In addition to Glen Alleman, two of my regular go-to gals (so much for PC) are Johanna Rothmann and Esther Derby. Here's a pile of posts from them that are worth your time.
From Johanna Rothmann:
Why Everyone Needs to Manage Their Own Project Portfolio - "...Developers (and testers and writers) need to let go of old work. Their managers need to stop assigning everything that smells like that old thing to those specific developers, and add in the new requests to the entire project portfolio....The key is for everyone to know what they are working on for a short while, and what their personal backlog is..."
Measuring Productivity: More Difficult for Managers - "...how to measure knowledge workers. For software project teams, it’s easy: the number of running, tested features over time. The features have to be complete. No partial credit for partially done features. But what about for managers? That’s a little trickier..."
Which Kind of Project Are You Working On Now? - "...Especially in this economy, I would do as little as possible on keep-the-lights-on projects, avoid normal growth, and see if I couldn’t transform my business. But that’s my strategy, and fits my risk-taking approach, not yours. Do you know what kind of project you are working on? Should you be?"
Partial Commitments to Projects Create Unpredictable Projects - "...Partially-committed projects are not projects you can predict anything about. Yes, they have people assigned to them. Yes, they even make some progress. But how can you predict anything about the project?..."
From Esther Derby:
Specialists AND Generalists - "...if you have a project with many specialists, you end up with lots of politics as people seek ascendancy for their particular concerns. If the specialists are acting as vendors to a project team, those specialists may not be invested in the delivery goal of the project, only in delivering their part answering their concerns."
Three Myths about Teams - "...Teams that are working well together make the work look easy. They work at a purposeful, yet relaxed pace. They even look like they are having fun."
Visibly Valuable - "...Here are 10 things you can do as a developer to make yourself more visibly valuable, which may keep you off the RIF list..."
They've also got a few books, most of which I've read, and all of which I would recommend...
View Frank Patrick's profile
