You procrastinate. You worry that you may be making the wrong choice. You spend time on the irrelevant. You don't select the most important tasks from your many "to do's." You can't get things done on time. Join James Martin as he shares his experience with analysis paralysis, procrastination, and failure to deliver what others expect. After a look at why we procrastinate, James turns his attention to his personal story of a "bubble" of super productivity in which he delivered more relevant work in a two-week period than he believed possible. Along with the techniques and tips you would expect from a productivity boosting experience report, James explains the state of mind that will help you distinguish important from trivial tasks, reduce waste in your work, and discover the most important thing to do next. You can get It all done in record time-and with less angst than you ever dreamed possible.

Is your company experiencing difficulty and frustration with its offshore project teams? Are your teams not consistently performing well? Are the results not what was expected? Gerie Owen shares her experiences in managing offshore test teams through each phase of the project cycle-from selecting the team and executing the project through presenting and documenting its results. Gerie explains how to assess the team’s knowledge and skill level. Because your offshore team members often are new to you, it is critical to recognize and handle training issues as early as possible. With the challenges of time zones, language, and cultural differences, Gerie addresses the critical issues of providing explicit direction and expressing clear expectations.

As if releasing a quality software project on time were not difficult enough, ineffective management practices when dealing with planning, people, and process issues can be deadly to a project. Presenting as a series of anti-pattern case studies, Ken Whitaker describes the most common deadly habits-and ways to avoid them. These seven killer habits are: mishandling employee incentives; attempting to make key decisions by consensus; ignoring processes and releasing too early; delegating absolute control to a project manager; taking too long to negotiate a project’s scope; releasing an “almost tested” product to market; and hiring someone who is not quite qualified-but whom everyone likes. Whether you are an experienced manager struggling with some of these issues or a new software manager, you’ll take away invaluable tips and techniques for correcting these software management habits-or better yet, avoiding them altogether.

Using an amusing medieval tale with a modern twist, Andrew Fuqua and Charles Suscheck tackle the dilemma of dealing with problematic overachievers in your agile team.