New project management articles published on the web during the week of July 20 – 26. We give you a high-level view so you can read what interests you. Our theme this week is Agile software development. Recommended:
Must read!
- Johanna Rothman shares a few tips for product owners faced with ranking features in a backlog. This needs to be a checklist!
- Neil Killick shares a twelve-point decision tree (which only looks like a questionnaire) that will help you determine whether your team is actually developing software using Agile methods. And no, it’s not a twelve-step program – just a coincidence.
- Aaron Smith interviews Thomas Wise, co-author of the new book, “Agile Readiness: Four Spheres of Lean and Agile Transformation.”
PM Best Practices
- Elizabeth Harrin: “The biggest challenge facing project management today is that project-related work and jobs are growing too quickly for our approaches to professionalism to keep up.”
- Adam Shostak points us toward a good, long read at CIO on real lessons learned from the dubious rollout of Healthcare.gov.
- John Goodpasture quotes John LeCarre (for the second time in a week) on the need for facts to have a credible source.
- Kailash Awati continues his series introducing us to R, the open source statistical analysis package.
- Kerry Wills walks us through his analytical process for Issues.
- Bruce Benson leverages a story in Bloomberg Businessweek to introduce the radical idea of skepticism, as a tool for issue prevention.
- Kenneth Darter observes that some issues only crop up after the project is (nearly) completed. That doesn’t make them non-issues!
- Matthew Squair reports on a demonstration of how to take control of a car via the internet. “My new car has Wi-fi!” Far out, Dude …
- Lynda Bourne covers the elements of stakeholder engagement, including a bit of history.
- Paul Ritchie addresses a tough recruiting question: how do I interview for soft skills?
- Nick Pisano looks at the economics of data through the lenses of public sector economic and Moore’s Law.
- Rex Homlin explains that successful projects are successful on three levels.
- Ryan Ogilvie covers the basics of software asset management.
Agile Methods
- Mike Griffiths posts an infographic and some statistics and analysis on a topic we sometimes avoid: the down side of open space office plans.
- Mike Cohn provides an alternative to user stories, for when your users aren’t really part of the story.
- Glen Alleman explains why deadlines still matter, even in an Agile world.
- Bob Tarne explains Lean, from a mountain climber’s perspective.
- Alhad Akole share best Scrum practices for getting to zero defects.
Podcasts and Videos
- Cesar Abeid interviews the all-around wonderful Dorie Clark, on how to be better and how to be noticed for it. Just 55 minutes, safe for work.
- Harry Hall shares a short video, where Shane Hastie explains the discipline of business analysis. Three minutes, safe for work.
- Ruairi O’Donnellan shares a micro-video on issue management using Sharepoint. Less than two minutes, safe for work.
Enjoy!