people management

Better Software Magazine Articles

Long-Distance Relationships

A letter from the Better Software magazine editor.

Heather Shanholtzer's picture Heather Shanholtzer
Filling The Blank Page

Having trouble starting projects, understanding scope and business processes, or with estimation? Mark shares some tips and techniques to avoid common business analysis pain points at the early part of a new project assignment.

Mark Jenkins's picture Mark Jenkins
Forget What You Think You Know

The transition to lean-agile can be challenging for traditional project managers because traditional competencies and practices can conflict with the core principles that explain why lean principles work. To help prepare project managers transitioning to lean-agile, this article exposes five counterintuitive practices that challenge standard project management beliefs.

Guy Beaver's picture Guy Beaver
Enterprise Agile and the Business Analyst

Agile is making its way into the enterprise as a project methodology for industrial-strength projects. Why the popularity? The answer lies in the requirements paradox: “We want requirements to be stable, but requirements are never stable.” Discover some key agile concepts as they affect business analysts.

John C. Goodpasture's picture John C. Goodpasture
Sometimes Perception Is the Problem

High on a mountain twenty years ago, a wise man shared secrets of problem solving that have served Payson Hall ever since. In this article, Payson passes along a simple definition that offers insights into problems and potential solutions.

Payson Hall's picture Payson Hall
Product Owners Should Care About Quality

Product owners often view quality as an ugly duckling—necessary to ship software, but nerdy and a drag. Instead, they should be guardians of quality. Only when quality meets functionality is lasting value created.

Roman Pichler
Hearing ''No''

"No" can be disappointing. Sometimes we have difficulty hearing or dealing with No. Can we learn how to cope with No with less pain and angst? Can we learn how to prevent No at least some of the time? Yes and yes!

Rick Brenner's picture Rick Brenner
The Roles of the Project Management Office in Scrum

Successfully adopting Scrum entails understanding and perhaps adjusting the role of the project management office (PMO), whose workers are often resistant to the lighter-weight process. But, they can become a critical part of agile success. Discover how an agile PMO works.

Mike Cohn's picture Mike Cohn
Us Against Them

How well does creating an opposing force serve to deliver on shared objectives within the same organization? A stronger argument may be to teach both business stakeholders and delivery personnel to reach across organizational boundaries to share not only the vision but also the methods used to achieve it.

Doug Goldberg's picture Doug Goldberg
Broken Windows, Broken Projects

A social experiment in the ‘80s found “Vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers are lowered by actions that seem to signal that 'no one cares.'" The same can be said for our software projects.

Lee Copeland's picture Lee Copeland

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