Does Google 2008 = Microsoft 1998?
This is a question I’ve thought about often (See Google’s ten rules compared to Microsoft). Before I give my…
Category: Management
Are you a leader or a tracker?
We have truly messed up our job titles. Somehow, somewhere, the job title project manager became lame. I don’t…
Lessons from amazing projects: Russian Ark
We’ve all had tough projects, but this one might just top them all, and it hits on three of…
Innovation at big companies
There are two excellent posts on Dare Obsjano’s blog about innovation in big companies. The first is on innovation…
More on asshole driven development
Hey folks – apologies if you’ve had problems accessing the site. The last blog post on asshole driven development…
How and Why To Write a Rude Q&A
One handy technique I learned years ago at Microsoft was the Rude Q&A (RQA). Whenever we had a major…
Asshole-driven development
[Since this was originally posted commenters have added 100+ addition methods – see the comments below. There’s more commentary…
Management by fire: Bourdain on leadership
A great interview with Anthony Bourdain about managing and leadership. I mention Bourdain’s book, Kitchen confidential in The art…
Efficiency vs. Creativity
A recent Businessweek article on 3M highlights the trade off between managing for efficiency and managing for creativity. I…
Why research labs fail at innovation
Research labs are an old idea. Edison’s Menlo park lab in the 1870s had most of the elements innovation…
Why you should treat contractors / temps well
One habit many managers have is to dump the boring, unpleasant work of their team onto contract workers. The…
Speaking in Moscow, April 25th
The fine folks at Moscow’s IT-Online have invited me to teach a one day seminar on management April 25th…
How to start meetings on time (the honest answer)
Starting and stopping on time is easy. One person with power simply has to decide to care, the rest…
How to kill innovation hype
You know a big word is in trouble when it’s used repeatedly (inconcievable!) – it means the person saying…
First interview about Myths of Innovation
I had a blast speaking at Adaptive Path’s MX conference recently about the Myths of Innovation book. I had…
Do headlines make us dumber?
In the parade of mis-represented research that is modern journalism, we have this short article from MSNBC, titled “Do…
This week in pm-clinic: the white knight
After a few weeks on hiatus, the pm-clinic is back. With a vengeance. New tales of management challenges and…
Book review: Dreaming in code
I was greatly anticipating Scott Rosenberg’s, co-creator of Salon, new book, Dreaming in code and was happy to get…
When should you take vacation? A strategy
The week between Christmas and New Years, is the worst time to use vacation. The reason is that’s when…
The mistakes of having a VP of innovation
Hypothesis: if ever a VP of something is created, perhaps a VP of quality or a VP of sarcasm,…