Many believe that matrix management is the best organizational structure to use in managing the development of new services as well as new products. To understand how this perception arose and whether it is true for software development companies regardless of company size, part 1 of of our series on matrix management will look at the its definition and its general history of usage.
Understanding What’s Important
Targeted networking requires having a good idea of what your target will look like. When looking for a job, many people will first think that any tolerable job will do as long as it pays. Most people don’t really think what is important in a job until they are in it. By then it is too late.
But a job isn’t just money or a short commute – job satisfaction most often is based on many other attributes, such as:
Continue reading "Finding a Job by Targeted Networking – Part 2 " »
A vexation of work life that is all too common is to carve a meeting out of an extended team's minimal available time and then discover after the meeting that individual members hold their own different understanding of what was decided. An example might be a systems analyst who supports the needs of multiple business platforms or applications, all of which have business managers competing for both priority service response and extensive product delivery from the analyst. In this example, agreements that were made in a team meeting begin to unravel just days later over disagreements of exactly what was decided and negotiated regarding which system was going to receive what functional upgrades first. Another example might be a technical management team that meets to decide on how a departmental reorganization should handle a proscribed 5% reduction in headcount, only to discover during the middle of implementing the re-organization that one of the QA managers has misunderstood how workflow was going to be restructured within her team.
Sometimes a lack of shared understanding can be a calculated attempt on the part of a meeting participant to be opportunistic in implmenting their own course amidst the busyness and confusion of hectic work demands that are further stretched by cross-functional team collaboration. Regardless if the reason for the confusion is due to calculated intent, inattention, or the occassional lapse of detail by an individual of goodwill, practicing strong meeting leadership can maximize a common understanding of what was agreed to at a meeting as well as clarify the observed behavior of meeting participants who chronically misunderstand meeting decisions. This leadership takes the form of 2 practices prior to holding the meeting and 3 practices at the end of a meeting.
Continue reading "Leaving a meeting with a shared understanding" »
By far, the majority of job search books recommend finding a job through networking. For many people, networking is too fuzzy a concept or just plain difficult to do. A job seeker can turn "networking" into the task of asking everyone they know if they have heard of an open position. And if this doesn’t work, the aspiring networker will feel frustrated and discouraged and feel that networking really isn't working for them.
Continue reading "Finding a Job by Targeted Networking - Part 1" »
Prior to QA testing cycle, making quality measurements is difficult. At this point, QA is focused on test plans, automation, and product definition, while the engineering team is focused on designing and building the product. Getting an earlier quality snapshot of what is going on prior to any testing being done is useful because most of the quality problems are built in during definition and design.
A potential early quality indicator is QA team quality perception. This approach measures the QA team quality perception during the release the entire release cycle. This approach is effective on larger projects when the QA team is working alongside engineering during development to build up their test plans.
Often times the new or early-career senior technology manager has never been formerly trained in how to approach decision making. This results in the new manager approaching a major component of his management style either with a "gut" sense or by adopting the behaviors of other admired managers. Regardless, a senior executive has a responsibility to up his game through the execution of an intentional decision-making framework.
Most small companies have a short term and a long term plan. The short term plan is often the sales funnel and sales strategy for the next 6-12 months. The long term “story” – That is the one sold to investors. Unfortunately, there isn’t always a clear way to get from here to there. Sometimes, there is no reasonable way without changing the short and long term plans....
Continue reading "The Gap Between Short Term and Long Term Planning" »
Ouch that burns. The email in your inbox is making you hot and angry.
It is strongly worded…
It borders on insulting…
It is trying to force a point at you and…
Thirty people are copied on it.
Anyone who has worked in high tech for a while has received one – a flaming email. The writer is trying to forcefully push their point of view and solicit support from a broad array of managers and people with some stake in the issue. The arguments will assert the unreasonableness of your position. And, often the messages will be very long with many points.
When you were interviewing for the technology manager position at your company, you may have asked your interviewers to talk about their company culture. The answer might have included a reference to their corporate mission, perhaps recited from memory or stumbled over during an impromptu recollection. Possibly your corporate mission and some core values are hanging as a wall placard that you, and everyone else in your organization, passes by each day.
