Johanna Rothman
Über Conf
Denver · June 14 - 17, 2010
Speaker, Consultant, Author for managing product development
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” offers frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams learn to see simple and reasonable things that might work. Equipped with that knowledge, they can decide how to adapt their product development.
With her trademark practicality and humor, Johanna is the author of 18 books about many aspects of product development. She’s written these books:
- Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility
- Become a Successful Independent Consultant
- Free Your Inner Nonfiction Writer
- Modern Management Made Easy series: Practical Ways to Manage Yourself; Practical Ways to Lead and Serve (Manage) Others; Practical Ways to Lead an Innovative Organization
- Write a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts
- From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams (with Mark Kilby)
- Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver
- Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
- Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, 2nd edition
- Project Portfolio Tips: Twelve Ideas for Focusing on the Work You Need to Start & Finish
- Diving for Hidden Treasures: Finding the Value in Your Project Portfolio (with Jutta Eckstein)
- Predicting the Unpredictable: Pragmatic Approaches to Estimating Project Schedule or Cost
- Manage Your Job Search
- Hiring Geeks That Fit
- The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
- Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby)
In addition to articles and columns on various sites, Johanna writes the Managing Product Development blog on her website, jrothman.com, as well as a personal blog on createadaptablelife.com.
Presentations
Coaching as a Two-Way Relationship
Many of us have experienced sports coaches, where they helped us stretch for the crawl, turn in dance, or catch a ball. But sports coaching tends to be just one kind of coaching—and not necessarily the kinds of coaching you need to provide or hear at work.
Coaching is one of the most important–and most difficult–responsibilities of leaders. Too often, people struggle and fail when it comes to coaching others. Coaches may try to impose their style on someone else for whom it doesn’t fit. Some coaches try to transfer “best practices” regardless of how well they fit the organization. Other coaches talk too much.
Coaching is a two-way relationship between a coach and the coachee. But not all the learning is on the coachee’s side. If a coach is not learning as he or she proceeds with the coaching, the coach shortchanges the coachee.
Coaching as a Two-Way Relationship
Many of us have experienced sports coaches, where they helped us stretch for the crawl, turn in dance, or catch a ball. But sports coaching tends to be just one kind of coaching—and not necessarily the kinds of coaching you need to provide or hear at work.
Coaching is one of the most important–and most difficult–responsibilities of leaders. Too often, people struggle and fail when it comes to coaching others. Coaches may try to impose their style on someone else for whom it doesn’t fit. Some coaches try to transfer “best practices” regardless of how well they fit the organization. Other coaches talk too much.
Coaching is a two-way relationship between a coach and the coachee. But not all the learning is on the coachee’s side. If a coach is not learning as he or she proceeds with the coaching, the coach shortchanges the coachee.
Successful Software Management: 17 Lessons Learned
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.
Manage Your Project Portfolio: A Lean and Agile Approach
Feel as if you can't get anything done? More projects than time to do them? Crises out the wazoo? Then it's time to consider another approach: managing your project portfolio. You can organize your projects and and evaluate them without getting buried under a mountain of statistics.
Agile and Lean Program Management: Collaborating Across the Organization
Agile or lean is working for you, on smaller projects. Now, you’ve got this big program. Will agile scale? Of course. Does it have to be in a big framework? Of course not.
When you scale agile to a program, you perform program management. You do not need Big Planning and huge teams. You need feature teams who work with autonomy, collaboration, and exploration. Add in autonomous program teams, and you have agile and lean program management.