Interesting, if cynical, post over at next-microsoft. He mentions part of his criteria for chosing a job is how much power he would have to solve problems that impact him.

Basically the idea is this (a now corrected paraphrase of his post):

A = Number of problems you see
B = Number of Problems you don’t have the power to solve
B / A = Victimization ratio.

So if you work in an environment where you can point out 10 problems, but are only capable/empowered to solve 4 of them (so 6 you are powerless on), your victimization ratio is 6 / 10 = 60%

I think this should be modified to include C) problems you can get someone else to solve for you. If you have a good manager, or even a good team of peers or reports, they may have the power to solve problems that you can’t.

I’d argue that a good manager solves problems for their team all the time that the team doesn’t have the power to solve on their own (e.g. poltical/upper management issues).

Then of course there’s D - Problems that initially you don’t have the power to solve, but can obtain if you ask for it, fight for it, or prove you’re worthy of. There’s going to be a trend line for D - how easy is it to demonstrate you’re worthy of more, and how fast is it granted to you? I think that’s more important than how much you start with.

I’d invert the value and call it The empowerment ratio. And call D the rate of empowerment.

Full article - The victimization ratio

Posted in Management, Microsoft | 11 Comments »

Sometimes people are subtle - other times, well, not so much.

Take this parting shot left for the manager of a Vancouver coffee shop.

How damaged must the lines of communication have been if four people, collectively, decided this was the only way to get their point across?

Full story - Mutiny at the cafe.

(Link from flee.com)

Posted in Management | 4 Comments »

Recent article about the Do-it-yourself MBA movement mentions The art of project management as a popular book among these groups, specifically the Personal MBA run by Josh Kaufman.

Can a personal MBA match the real McCoy?

(Thanks to faisal.com for the link)

Posted in The Art of PM book | 1 Comment »

My first book was published almost a year ago - While no one can predict book sales, that hasn’t stopped people, especially writers, from trying.

Below you’ll find a year’s worth of amazon.com sales data for The art of project management (provided by rankforest.com) with notes on my activities (This starts 4 weeks after the book was in stores because I didn’t know about rankforest until then). There are problems with amazon rankings, but they’re an easy indicator to track.

Here is the promotion rundown from 5/1/2005 to today:

• I used my newsletter, monthly essays and this blog to announce the book and get my writing out there.
• I created a postcard, and distributed it whenever I lectured.
• I did two self-organized book tours: one in the bay area (w/lessons learned) at book launch, and east coast 5 months later.
• I did one comically bad radio interview, two podcasts (at baychi and podtech), several web interviews and one webcast. I said yes to all credible requests (and still do).
• O’Reilly promoted the book in their catalog, website and bestseller list (once it got there), and invited me to write a few pieces for their website. They posted a sample chapter and allowed slashdot to excerpt another. Kathryn Barrett, publicist for O’Reilly, was fantastic, generously sending out reviewer copies to folks willing to write reviews for websites and magazines.
• This blog generates good traffic but most peaks in web traffic were driven by new essays.

Who knows if these efforts help - plenty of books do well without things like this, and many with big promotion budgets do poorly. It’s complex and a topic for another post.

However it happened, the book has been a big success. Thanks to all of you for visiting, reading, buying and spreading the word about the book. Every sale motivates me to work that much harder and write that much more.

The pairing of writing books and being for hire as a trainer/consultant feeds off each other: people who like the book often hire me and people who hire me often buy the book. So for any would-be writers out there, this is a great approach for a first book.

I’m doing well and have signed to write a second book for O’Reilly - I’m on track to put another dent in that shelf.

For fun, comparative data is listed for Malcom Gladwell’s book “Blink”. Not sure what happened to him on 10/16, but it looks like he survived his largest rank-drop: from the teens down to 57.

Posted in On writing, The Art of PM book | 10 Comments »

This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum- PMs vs. Programmers:

Welcome to April (If you’re in the USA, time to get your taxes done).

Here’s this week’s situation: The raging debate in my corner of the world is PMs vs. programmers. Our management just agreed to hire another two PMs for our organization, instead of hiring another two programmers.

Most of us (the other programmers) think it’s a mistake: our biggest needs are team bandwidth and productivity, not planning, client management or crisis management. We’re afraid of the ratio of PM to programmers spiraling us down into unproductive misery. Most of the PMs around here are non-technical and can’t help much in technical decision making.

Two part question:

1. How do you know the right ratio of PMs to programmers for a team?
2. What level of technical skill should PMs have? CS degree? former programmer? C++ for dummies? Or none at all?

Posted in Management, PM-Clinic | 2 Comments »

This week in the ux-clinic discussion forum- Being the UX hero:

Our group is in the process of launching a new version of our external website, but the solo developer left before it was finished. He claims it’s 90% done. No UX priniciples were used up to this point (we were busy on actual products). None of us have time to take it over, but we have a budget to bring in someone else.

I have two fears / opportunities:

1) There’s an opportunity to teach my org a few things about how UX should be done. If we bring someone in, will they be seen as the heroic talent, saving the day, and not my UX team?

2) If the day is saved, by us or by a contractor, I don’ t want the wrong lesson to be learned. I want to make sure that everyone understands this is not the right way to go about designing things (apply design magic dust in the last stretch). So how do I get design involved without teaching management and the org the wrong lesson?

- Being the UX hero

Posted in Design, UX-Clinic | 1 Comment »