Managing Product Development

I was talking with a new manager recently, and she was explaining what she had to tell a new employee (a co-op, but an employee). “I told him he had to be here by 9am every day he works. He can eat lunch from 12 to 1, and then he should be back at his desk. I then told him if he ran out of work, he should talk to me, and that he could leave between 5:30 and 6:00.”

We were chuckling, and I told her the story of one of the first co-ops I hired. I had to tell him to brush his teeth, take a shower every day, wear different clothes every day, and make sure to use deodorant. After he got into the rhythm of work, about a month later, he thanked me. I was curious, and asked why he’d been so unaware all these years before this job. He said, “Well, I was smart enough to coast by on my brains. But all the work I did, I did from my room. I never had to see anyone or work with anyone before. This is a huge difference for me. And, my social life is improving!”

I’ve had a number of funny-strange conversations, and many of them are about feedback. If you have to give someone feedback about body odor or halitosis, remember how:

• Create an opening to deliver feedback.
• Describe the behavior or result in a way the person can hear.
• State the impact using “I” language.
• Make a request for changed behavior.

Take a look at With Feedback, It’s Kind to be Firm for an example. As long as we have geeky people in high tech, managers will have to have these conversations. Make them helpful conversations, and you’ll have an employee that’s loyal to you forever.

I’m still catching up on posting links where either I or other people had aha moments:

TMI’s One-on-Ones discusses a bunch of things about one-on-ones, something Esther and I have been talking about forever (as well as in Behind Closed Doors.)

David Carlton explains how he adapted one-on-ones. (For the record, I love it when people say they adapt my suggestions to make it fit for them. I caught up with David earlier this month when I was at SD West, and he explained in person how he’d adapted them. I was thrilled then and thrilled now.)

Arnon talks about sticky planning vs project scheduling tools in Sticky notes vs. the computer. I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly said,  that sticky notes provide you “constant visibility.” (Arnon’s quote.) I wish I had. Maybe in the next edition of Manage It!

Deb Hartmann interviewed me (video and audio!) at Agile 2007. We mostly talked about schedule games from Manage It. (We briefly discussed Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management and Hiring the Best Knowedge Workers, Techies & Nerds.)

For those of you who’ve met me and are wondering, “Where are Johanna’s glasses?” They’re in my lap. They were reflecting too much, so I took them off. Luckily I could see well enough to have a conversation with Deb.

At SD earlier this week, I led a tutorial about coaching. Imagine my surprise when I asked people why they were there, and some of them said, “I have a person who’s not doing so well. I need to coach them.”

Uh, no. You need to give that person feedback. Feedback is information about the past, given in the present, with the goal of influencing the future. (That’s a paraphrase of What Did You Say?.) Coaching is helping people see other options, and therefor helping them increase their capacity or capability.

Feedback is something managers must do. The more collaborative the team, the more everyone on the team needs to know who to give and receive feedback. But coaching? Coaching is optional.

People choose when they want coaching. They choose their coach. It’s not acceptable to impose coaching on someone else. (Esther and I showed examples of this in Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management.)

If you’re a manager, make sure you know the difference between coaching and feedback. Otherwise you’ll confuse your team members, spend too much time with the people who provide the least value, and not coach the people who could use your coaching.

Tech Republic has the estimation chapter from Manage It!.

There’s a great Manage It! review at Book Review: Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management.

Michael Fransen enjoyed Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. He posted a review. The session he took at Agile 2007 was “Hiring for an Agile Team,” based on Hiring the Best ….

Labels: Behind Closed Doors, Hiring the Best Knowledger Workers, Manage It

Esther and I are offering another public workshop, Managing One-on-One April 23-25, 2007, in Minneapolis. Here’s the flyer with the details. Questions? Email or call me.

Labels: Behind Closed Doors, public workshops

In addition to writing this blog, I also write Hiring Technical People. And, I’ve met a bunch of great recruiting-type people through that blog. One of them, Jim Durbin, has written a great review of Behind Closed Doors. He calls it “a reference manual for technical managers.”

Adam Goucher published his Review of Behind Closed Doors. Adam likes it! Here are the things he particularly likes: the scenario structure of seeing what a great manager does each week; and the techniques that managers (and anyone else) can use to make life easier. Thanks, Adam.

If you haven’t read Amit’s review of Behind Closed Doors, ON THE BOOKSHELF: “SECRETS OF GREAT MANAGEMENT” FINALLY REVEALED take a look. A quote:

So it’s a welcome surprise to read Behind Closed Doors (The Pragmatic Programmers, 2005), by management experts Johanna Rothman and Esther Derby, and to find that it’s full of realistic scenarios

Mike Kelly posted some reflections on Behind Closed Doors: Making Progress Visible. I love it when people understand why their managers are asking questions.