Successful Software Management:
17 Lessons Learned
Johanna Rothman
New: Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects

www.jrothman.com+1-781-641-4046

Some Startling Statistics• Want to improve your processes?
– Reuse gives a 350% improvement– Capable managers gives 65% improvement– Project staff with capability and domain expertise gives 55% improvement– Effective methods/processes gives 35% improvement
Source: Capers Jones, Software Assessments, Benchmarks, and Best Practices. AddisonWesley, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2000. (page 133).

© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

2Why Have Managers, Anyway?
• Managers exist to organize purposefully (paraphrase of Drucker)• Obtain business results by– Get the best work out of your people– Create an environment that enables people to work
– Increase your team’s capacity• Create value for the customers by working effectively, balancing theneeds of the business, the people, and the environment you create© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

3Effective Management• Surprisingly difficult to do– Started as an individual contributor– No training– “The people stuff is hard to do”• As we proceed, think about your capabilities and knowledge– What is new for you, what do you already practice, what are you ready to taketo the next step?

© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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1. Know What They Pay You to Do• What’s your mission—the reason they hired you? Some possibilities
are:– Keep clients happy– Release on time
– Keep the CEO from random calls– See to the care and feeding of the developers/testers/writers/whomever– Understand the state of the product at any time and report on it– Find the Big Bad Bugs before the customers do• What’s your mission?

© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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2. Plan the Work: Portfolio Management• Identify and manage your project portfolio– Collect all the work: know what all the work is– Rank it– Decide what you can staff and what will be unstaffed• Develop strategies for each product– How little can you do?

• Know what done means for each project• Avoid multi-tasking and its context-switching© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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3. Accept Only One #1 Priority at a Time
• How many of you are context switching between several #1
priorities?
• Do you confuse urgent and important?
• You can only do one (important) thing at a time
• Choose what it is© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

74. Commit to Projects After Asking YourStaff• “Can we have this next month (or week or day)?”• Even if you’ve already considered the request, the answer is “No”
– In the moment, you might confuse this request with another request– There may be other implications you haven’t considered, since it’s no longer
the same time you first considered this request.

• Don’t train your management to ask you for an answer– Your staff will know that you think: I want to know what it will really take you to do this work
 I’m not afraid to tell my management what it will take© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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5. Hire the Best People for the Job••••

A manager’s greatest point of leverage is in hiring appropriate staff“Best” is not necessarily synonymous with “Similar”Develop a hiring strategy
Learn to interview successfully, so you can hire people who can do
the job well (stars)© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

96. Preserve Good Teams• How do you create teams now?
– Do you keep teams together who work well together?
– Do you keep pairs together who work well together?

• Recognize when you have a team un-jeller– Find another place for that person (not necessarily in your company)• Do you have people who like to work together and are successful
working together? Do you keep them together?
• Don’t disrupt teams just because you think it’s time to break up ateam– Every time you re-create a team, there’s a team startup cost

© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

107. Avoid Micromanaging or Inflicting Help
• Assume each person knows how to perform his or her job• Assume you no longer know how to perform the job• You hired the people because you thought they could do the work.
Let them...
– Give them assignments– Ask if they need help
– Jointly decide when to check in– Don’t interfere
 Sneak up behind them and ask “How’s it going?
 Micromanagement
 Inflicting advice• Choose a time to know when they or you are stuck© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

118. Treat People Individually and WithRespect• Adapt your management style to each person• Everyone likes different projects– Specific tasks vs. general information– New complex problems vs. immediate success• Your staff’s relationship with you is more significant than rewards– Ask your staff what they want from work
– Provide opportunities to do new or different work
– Treat people with respect– Clarify each person’s contribution to the organization (in a one-on-one)– Hire candidates they respect– Treat people as individuals© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

129. Meet Weekly with Each Person• Why do people work? Stay at the same job? “The people”• One-on-ones help you– Build trusting relationships– Know what’s really going on• One-on-ones are sacrosanct– With each person at a regular uninterrupted time
– We talk about Their accomplishments: Showing progress, not just talking about progress Their issues
 If they need my help
 Career development
 Anything else they want to discuss– After we’ve done this for a while, they can set the agenda© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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But:
• I don’t have time…
– You already are taking the time but not building the relationship– If you plan time, you can reduce the number of unplanned interruptions– How will you give timely feedback on performance?

• I’m using Agile– Wonderful! You don’t have to discuss project progress– My experience on Agile teams is that people require more feedback, coaching,and mentoring especially for interpersonal skills© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

1410. Plan Training Time in the Workweek• Technical work is constantly changing• People generally like getting training• Many inexpensive ways
– Brown bag lunches– Periodic talks from other groups– Present projects across the company– In-house tool “user group” meeting– Outside experts
 Professional consultants or speakers
 Knowledgeable friend or colleague© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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10.1 Plan Training Time Each Week forYourself• You need to continue your education on a regular basis too• Possibilities:– Article/column review with your peers/group– Book reading (1 chapter per week and discuss) with peers/group– Conferences© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

1611. Give Credit Freely• When people have done a good job, never take credit. Acknowledge
the work publicly– “Howard’s work on the data for this report allowed me to finish it in time”– “Julia’s really considered the angles on this architecture”– “My staff, Tim, Tina, and Theo finished that feature for you”

© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

1712. Fire People Who Can’t Do the Work
• Keeping people around who can’t perform is expensive in time, project budget andmorale• If you’ve tried to hire the appropriate people, and you’ve given them feedback, andthey’re not working out, fire them
– Part of your job as a manager is to assess peoples’ work, and give them feedback– If they can’t work the way you need them to, your job is done
– Work with your HR group to handle the situation with humanity and persistence. Ifollow this checklist:
 Verbal feedback and coaching in our one-on-ones. How many times do I have tosay the same thing?
 Written feedback and more coaching. Start a 4-8 week get-well plan with definedoutcomes Continue weekly feedback until end of get-well plan.
© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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13. Emphasize Results, Not Time• Hours working do not positively correlate with productivity• Permit (Force?) people to only work 40 hours per week
– When they work longer, they do non-work things– Productivity goes down
– If you keep people working only 40 hours per week, they work on work things• But I keep getting interrupted…
– Log where the time goes
– Look for meetings you can cancel– What obstacles do you need to remove?

• Reward results• Plan for a 40-hour week, and reward the work completed in that time
© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

1914. Admit Your Mistakes• Mistakes are embarrassing• If you admit mistakes, people respect you more
– You save face by admitting you are human• Don’t deny or ignore mistakes© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

2015. Recognize and Reward Good Work• Give positive feedback liberally– Privately as one-on-ones– Publicly in group meetings (if that fits for the person)– Publicly to the organization about the group’s work or a project’s work

• Rewards don’t have to cost you money– Consider team-generated awards (divorced from money)
 “Best recursion of the month”
 “Best problem report of the month”– Time off– Group activity, but consider whether everyone really enjoys the activity– Appreciations– Team party– Movie tickets– Ask the group© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

2116. Take a Vacation• You can’t do your best job when you’re burnt out• Helps your team learn how to run things without you– You’re not tied to just one job– Everyone has more opportunities© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

2217. Manage Yourself• Before you can manage other people successfully, you need to knowhow to manage yourself– Organize your work
– Recognize when you’re accomplishing work and when you’re stuck– Recognize when your reactions are not in synch with the situation– Learn from your decision-making, behaviors, and actions– Keep a journal so you can learn from your actions© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

23Technical People Can Make GreatManagers• Manage your management career• Know what you have to do, and develop a strategy to do the work
– Identify how to manage your staff– Observe your own work
– Make corrections and continue• You don’t have to be perfect• Do enough right to help people do their best work in an environment
they can work in• Help your managers learn to be better managers—the productivity
gains are enormous© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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Resources
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Drucker, Peter, Management Challenges for the 21st Century, HarperBusiness, New York, 1999.
DeMarco, Tom and Tim Lister, Peopleware, Productive Projects and Teams, Dorset House, New York, 1999.
Magretta, Joan. What Management Is, How it Works and Why It’s Everyone’s Business. The Free Press, NewYork, 2002.
Buckingham, Marcus and Curtis Coffman, First, Break All the Rules, What the World's Greatest Managers Do
Differently, Simon and Schuster, 1999.
Rothman, Johanna, Successful Software Management: 14 Lessons Learned, Crosstalk, December 2003.
Rothman Johanna, Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring
Technical People, Dorset House, 2004.
Rothman, Johanna and Esther Derby, Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management, Pragmatic
Bookshelf, 2005.
Rothman, Johanna, Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, Pragmatic Bookshelf,2007.
Rothman, Johanna, Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, 2009.
I have a number of articles on my web site, www.jrothman.com and blog, and Pragmatic Manager email
newsletter: www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager/–If you’d like to subscribe, give me your card or fill out a yellow form

© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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© 2010 Johanna Rothmanwww.jrothman.com

jr@jrothman.com

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