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Has anyone read Thomsett's book on project management? I've gone through it once and it has some great ideas.....not sure how real some of them are, but the basic approach has allot going for it.
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Re: Radical Project Management - Rob Thomsett
Sat, January 17, 2004 - 11:28 AMI haven't heard of the book, but could you please mention a high-order bit or two.
Major premise?
Which ideas are particularly great? -
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Re: Radical Project Management - Rob Thomsett
Sun, January 18, 2004 - 10:50 AMHere, here. As someone that has had to do a lot of PM work on agile projects (by force, I admit), I'd love to know if someone has devised something that makes it less like being drawn through a meat grinder.
I think that's one of the biggest disconnects with the agile movement, is the impact it actually has on management and the customers to deal with having their fingers so far into the dev process, and really and truly exposing the day to day risk of software. Suits really like to have a solid answer as to when it is happening, and then they'd prefer you to just pop up periodically and say "everything is okey dokey". But actually seeing point releases every N weeks or days and having feedback into the progress of the project can tend to fray a lot of nerves on both sides. -
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Re: Radical Project Management - Rob Thomsett
Sun, January 18, 2004 - 5:19 PMmuch of the book is about focusing on project areas that are mostly ignored and putting the sponsers to task in regards to some of them.
The first step, prior to scope defination - etc., is to work with everyone to describe what the successful project would look/act like. If you don't know what success is how will you ever know when you reach it - and if you have the users/sponsers decide on it in the beginning the scope, etc. is much easier to define.
He then gets into the objective review, has the sponser determine the benefits and later on determines what the costs are.
It's about getting the users/sponsers more and more involved in the entire process instead of meeting them every other week you could end up seeing them daily.......if they're actually part of the team and part of the success factors they'll be more inclined to see the project succeed. -
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Re: Radical Project Management - Rob Thomsett
Mon, January 19, 2004 - 8:04 AMThanks for the summary -- it's helpful.
As you probably know this is not news; it's great advice and always worth repeating. It reminded me of the following list on the cover of the book "Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way" by Jim Lundy. This is more general than project management, but there is data to show that it works (it is also compatible with agile practices):
Leadership strategies for the thoroughly modern manager:
- share your goals and aspirations
- let the implementers be involved in the planning
- achieve clear understanding of expected results
- evaluate progress periodically and fairly
- reinforce the importance of others
- give credit where credit is due
- coach your subordinates for growth
- emphasize and re-emphasize teamwork
- search constantly for improvement in understanding, performance, and results!
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