Johanna Rothman talks with Dave Rael about experiential learning, writing, learning about human interaction, consulting, and frank advice
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” provides frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams see problems, resolve risks, and manage their product development.
Johanna was the Agile 2009 conference chair and was the co-chair of the first edition of the Agile Practice Guide. Johanna is the author of 14 books that range from hiring, to project management, program management, project portfolio management, and management. Her most recent books are From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams (with Mark Kilby) and Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver.
Read her blogs, email newsletter, and more information about her books at www,jrothman.com.
Chapters:
0:32 - Dave introduces the show and Johanna Rothman2:28 - Management and leadership5:36 - Deliberate learning and experiential learning9:38 - Johanna on travel and consulting work15:36 - Johanna, the author17:49 - Johanna on programming languages and getting started in software21:51 - Working with people28:24 - Johanna's story of failure - getting laid off from middle management jobs31:40 - Framing language to balance productive frankness and navigating offense37:21 - Johanna's current reading, book recommendations, book projects, and motivations for reading choices42:31 - Johanna on getting into management47:26 - Johanna's top 3 tips for delivering more value50:24 - Keeping up with Johanna
Resources:
Doc Norton on Developer On Fire
Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver - Johanna Rothman
Peter Drucker's Books
Fred George on Developer On Fire
The Complete Guide to Consulting Success - Howard L. Shenson
Peter Drucker
IBM RPG
Kent Beck on Developer On Fire
Practical Empathy: For Collaboration and Creativity in Your Work - Indi Young
Lean Accounting
The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - Gene Kim
PERT Chart
How to Use Inch-Pebbles When You Think You Can’t - Johanna Rothman
Johanna's book recommendation:
The Diving Series Box Set: Books 1-3 (The Diving Universe) - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't - Robert I. Sutton
The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt - Robert I. Sutton
The Stand - Stephen King
Nora Roberts
Johanna's top 3 tips for delivering more value:
Create a product good enough for customers to use now - don;t start with architecture first
Make the smallest deliverable you can
Stop multitasking - focus on one thing and get it to done