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No More Middleman Every manager has a story to tell. Find out how one management professional tackles a fictional dilemma. The story may be made up, but the solutions are tried and true. In this installment, Esther Derby tells you how to stop playing "Manager in the Middle" and get your team members talking.
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Measurements that Matter No one starts a project with the goal of failing, but some metrics experts claim that 80 percent of software metrics initiatives fail. Just as your software project has goals for success, you should have goals for success in your metrics initiatives. Find out what you can do to better your chance for success.
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Do-It-Yourself Projects collapse in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. Fortunately there are things you can do to stabilize and rebuild your project before the dust settles. With these expert tips and a little elbow grease, you'll have the tools you'll need to renovate almost any failing project.
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Your Job - Requirements = Less Value In this issue's Last Word, Dion Johnson calculates your job's worth when requirements are removed from the equation.
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You Can Teach an Old PMO Agile Tricks Every manager has a story to tell. Find out how one management professional tackles a fictional dilemma. The story may be made up, but the solutions are tried and true. In this installment, Michele Sliger tells the tale of the movement of a Program Management Office away from waterfall toward Agile.
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Putting a Face on Customer Needs So what happens when interaction designers are put to work on an Agile process? Meet "Dan Means," a system administrator persona developed to represent and emphasize customer requirements. Find out how one development team used him and other personas to blend interaction design and Agile development to deliver a product the customer really wanted.
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If the Shoe Doesn't Fit: Agile Requirements For Stepsister Projects Once upon a time there was an Agile requirements process and an ugly stepsister project. This might sound like the beginning of a fractured fairy tale, but it's a reality for many projects that don't fit the criteria for an efficient, effective requirements process. Language barriers, large teams, and tunnel vision are all things that can turn your project from Cinderella to stepsister. Find out how you can overcome these obstacles and get your team back to "happily ever after."
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Executor or Engineer Software testers are typically grouped en masse in the world of information technology (IT). Many in the software testing profession, however, know that this should not be the case. In this column, Dion Johnson exposes the dichotomy in testing that has produced two distinct groups—software test engineers and software test executors—and why these groups are embroiled in a struggle to possess the crown as the industry's true software quality professionals.
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Unearthing Buried Feedback Most managers realize that giving feedback is an important part of their job. But not all managers are skilled at providing feedback. Some make vague comparisons, mistakenly apply labels as feedback, and others just hint and hope you'll get the message. Esther Derby offers advice on how to probe for the information that will help you understand your manager's concerns when he doesn't state them clearly.
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The Whole Is a Sum of Its Parts Managing large teams adds up to a headache, especially when it comes to Agile projects. Learn how to successfully divide over-sized teams into Agile subteams—from a practitioner who literally wrote the book on the subject.
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