Category Archives: management

Awesome

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

Been away for a while. Not that I’ve vanished, but somehow stopped blogging for a bit. I was looking for something interesting on the internet the other day. This is kind of like my digital version of wandering around the … Continue reading →

Posted in animals, Change and Behavior, Innovation, management, morale | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

SCRUM and the Brain — Why Agile Development Works

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

I just finished reading a great book about how our cranial physiology impacts our behavior and ability to think and interact effectively. The book is called “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock. I enjoyed reading it and found a … Continue reading →

Posted in Change and Behavior, SCRUM, software development | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Software Design — Art? Random observations

Posted on March 12, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

Had a number of comments back to my earlier post asking whether software design was art or science. From the sampling, which was highly self selecting & amongst a number of old friends/acquaintances, there was an overwhelming sentiment that software design … Continue reading →

Posted in management, software development | 2 Comments

Metrics, Lies, and Other Crazy Statistics (feeling the Rapture?)

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

OK. After now having spent some more time thinking about statistics, I’ve seen the light. Really. The light. This proves that, with enough energy, you can prove darned near anything, including the end of the world as we know it. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Metrics, really stupid post. | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

People as Pack Animals

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

Here I go again. Thanks to my dad, I’ve now found even more of the abundant material supporting the premise that people are emotional beings who require social context for their behavior. In a recent op-ed piece in the New … Continue reading →

Posted in Group Dynamics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Swarm Intelligence — any parallels to team dynamics?

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

Ran across some interesting stuff on something called “swarm intelligence” This caused me to wonder if the concepts that they’ve identified might also apply to things that hit closer to home (at least for me). Some of the theory behind … Continue reading →

Posted in Group Dynamics, management, software development, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Emotions Rule — Regardless of Facts

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

Ran into an interesting post by Seth Godin that got me thinking (yeah, that can be dangerous). Regardless of the amount of data, many, if not most decisions people make have more to do with how they feel about things … Continue reading →

Posted in Change and Behavior, management, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Somewhere over the rainbow — distributed teams

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

If you’re working in this century, and managing people, odds are pretty good that they’re not sitting in the same building as you. The odds are even better that many of them are not even on the same continent, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Distributed Teams, management, software development, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Tribal Knowledge – People as Pack Animals

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

People do what people do. Mostly, with those around them. I recall once getting coerced into running in a charity 5k race (being a good dad, I thought that was the thing to do with my then 14-year-old son). I trained … Continue reading →

Posted in Change and Behavior, Group Dynamics | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Do Measurements Matter? (does a watched pot boil?)

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Mike Rodbell

There’s long been a debate about the role of metrics in software development organizations. There was the old adage that went “If its important, then its important enough to measure.” More recently, one of the proponents of that mantra, Tom … Continue reading →

Posted in Change and Behavior, management, Metrics, software development | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments