Johanna Rothman

By Johanna Rothman

Even the people who claim experience on Agile teams are not necessarily working the way your team works. And, because not everyone is using Agile approaches, some people who aren't using strictly Agile approaches may be perfect for your team. If you've tried to hire people recently, you know you can't reply on people with or without 'Agile' experience to be just right for your open positions and it's not a question of technical skill.

In this hands-on session, we'll define the essential technical and non-technical skills for your position, identify your cultural issues, and practice interviewing so all your hires can be successful.

We'll first define what's unique about your agile team, and develop areas about which to ask questions. Then we'll practice asking questions and listening to the answers.

By Johanna Rothman

Many software managers came to management through the technical ranks. Although they may have had plenty of technical training and mentoring, they frequently have to learn management skills the hard way, through trial and error. Johanna will describe some technical management tips and tricks learned through trial and error, focusing on software managers and their particular issues.

You'll learn about a manager's job, how to create an effective work environment, and how you can help people do their best work.

This presentation is good for agile and non-agile managers.

By Johanna Rothman

If you've been trying to change your organization so that your projects are at least more agile, you may have noticed several problems: it's difficult to have people such as product management, senior management, even functional managers work and manage in a way that makes sense for your agile project; you're working with other parts of a large program that isn't agile; you have a geographically distributed team; your management wants to know at the beginning when the project will end; or even that the project team does not share a common vision of what "done" means.

You are not alone. In this session, we will explore common organization, management, team, and individual team member issues, with suggestions for how you might make the changes more palatable and help people work with you in a way that helps your projects proceed.

This is a talk.

By Johanna Rothman

Whether you provide software to an enterprise of 10 or 10 million, or to external customers, you have too many projects in your queue. If you have not yet been able to organize the project portfolio and accomplish enough, this class will help you select techniques to do so.

We'll discuss all the kinds of work your group takes in, and which questions to ask to see if that work should even be done at all. Then we'll explore techniques for project prioritization, and a bit about how to deal with the inevitable push-and-pull across the organization when others are dissatisfied with your prioritization. You'll see a project portfolio plan at the highest level and the lowest level, and see how to apply rolling wave planning to your project portfolio. We'll discuss ways you can evaluate the projects in your portfolio and when to review the portfolio.

This is a talk.

By Johanna Rothman

Chances are good that if you've worked on a project, you've encountered a schedule game or two (or three or four). As part of a team, you've seen Schedule Chicken or 90% Done. If you're a project manager, you've probably pushed back against We Gotta Have it; We're Toast Without It, the Queen of Denial, We'll Go Faster Now, or Split Focus.

Using timeboxed iterations and other agile practices can help you avoid and stop playing schedule games. But you can't do this alone. First help your team and your management understand they are playing schedule games. Then, once they understand the games, enlist their help in solving the underlying problems that lead to the games. Even if you feel stuck--my management can't help; they're part of the cause--you can still use many of the agile practices to work your way out of the schedule games.

This is a talk.

By Johanna Rothman

Imagine this scenario: You're a Scrum Master who's desperately trying to facilitate two projects and your boss asks you to work on a third. Or you're a writer who's supposed to work on two different areas of the product--at the same time. Or you're a developer or tester who's supposed to work partly on this project, and partly on that one. Or, you're dragged away from one project to work on another one. Or, part of the project is stuck--so badly stuck that it makes no sense to continue there, but to work on another completely different part of the project. Welcome to the wonderful world of multitasking!

Multitasking is a huge drain on projects. Multitasking can prevent an otherwise reasonably planned and executed project from completing. But in the face of too few people and not enough time, what can you do?

In this session, we'll experience some multitasking, and discuss and practice techniques to deal with senior management, the project team, and ourselves.

This is the multitasking talk for technical contributors, not necessarily managers.