First published in the Management Chronicles of Better Software Magazine, January - February, 2008 issue. It's also posted on the stickyminds website. <> A smile formed on Eleanor's face as she saw me approach her doorway. She and I were meeting to discuss her views on recognizing and rewarding employees. She had been my manager for … [Read more...]
Manager is Junior Engineering
My friend Mitch was telling me this morning more about how his company was losing hundreds of millions of dollars because they couldn't execute their plans (see my earlier post Key Person Won't Participate). He mentioned that he had a one-on-one meeting with his manager to discuss how his work would drastically alter one-third of their business … [Read more...]
Key Person Won’t Participate
Unable to gain the participation of a key person for a project retrospective? A retrospective, sometime called a post-mortem or lessons learned session, is an event designed to discover and preserve the aspects of a project that were managed well; and discover and change the aspects that weren't. I consider this event a fundamental feedback … [Read more...]
Tell Me What You Want Me To Do
Are you overwhelmed by a mountain of email? I suggest you take a page out of the playbook of my colleague Eric Sperley who knows how to ask for what he wants. Eric sent the following message to the people who reported to him: Guys, Look, I am getting well over 250 emails a day. I can get 10-20 a day from each of you where I am just … [Read more...]
Ban Crackberries from Meetings?
Todd Wilkens advocates banning crackberries from all meetings. I agree with Todd that people distracted by emails and phone calls aren't focused and become impediments to an effective meeting. But, in my experience, too many organizations have terribly ineffective meetings. If your organization's meetings are terrible, will a ban on crackberries … [Read more...]
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