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Book Review: Made to Stick
I just finished reading (ok... listening) to Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The authors do a great job at expanding on some ideas on how to make ideas resonate and, well, stick with your audience... This is a key skill for any Program Read More...
Posted 27 January 08 04:08 by BradA | 2 Comments   
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PM Tip #14: Great teams have members that defy roles
I was asked recently to define the roles for PMs on my team. Specifically what they should do as compared with the dev and test teams. I flatly refused. The best teams I have worked in and with are those that defy the traditional roles and responsibilities. Read More...
Posted 24 October 07 08:55 by BradA | 3 Comments   
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That is a full day's work!
I am starting to work on writing some annual employee performance reviews and I was thinking about one of the first bits of advice my manager gave me when I joined Microsoft "Don't confuse activity with results". As we reflect over the year, it is easy, Read More...
Posted 28 July 07 05:34 by BradA | 4 Comments   
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FxCop Honored with Chairman's Award for Engineering Excellence
Every year, Microsoft honors a few innovations that have furthered the state of engineering excellence at Microsoft... Some years, Bill Gates selects one of the winners to honor with the special distinction of the chairman's award. I am told that Bill Read More...
Posted 05 July 07 06:39 by BradA | 9 Comments   
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Are you ready to make a change?
The ASP.NET team is looking to fill some senior Program Manager positions and you might be just the right person. I would love to have someone who is passionate about the web’s potential, who is an expert in common web technologies such as Php, Rails, Read More...
Posted 02 June 07 02:40 by BradA | 2 Comments   
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The Wisdom of Crowds: Rethinking consensus
I am a HUGE believer in building consensus , but The Wisdom of Crowds is starting to make be rethink the approach a bit. I just finished reading, ok listening to the audio version on my bike ride into work, James Surowiecki's latest book. His point is Read More...
Posted 18 May 07 09:02 by BradA | 4 Comments   
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PM Tip #12: Don't waist keystrokes
At Mix I ran into Jeff Atwood who reminded me about a my post on the "Be More Visible" Sham . He also told me I should take a look at Jon Udell's post Too busy to blog? Count your keystrokes [via Jeff's blog ] While I don't think every PM has to be a Read More...
Posted 06 May 07 07:54 by BradA | 4 Comments   
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Building Consensus
One of the core skills of a Program Manager is to build consensus. Microsoft (like many knowledge-worker driven IT companies) is not a top-down organization. For the most part, projects, ideas, directions are taken on through a consensus building exercise Read More...
Posted 23 December 06 07:05 by BradA | 8 Comments   
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The What and the How
I was talking recently with a coworker of mine about the “what” and the “how” of software projects. The “What” is the definition of the thing you are building. What customers should we go after? What markets should we serve? What competitors do we care Read More...
Posted 07 October 06 03:39 by BradA | 7 Comments   
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Thoughts on writing reviews...
Well, it is that time of year again here Microsoft – time for managers to write employee reviews (they are due 9/15 folks ;-)). While this is the subject of much Dilbert-style joking, I thought it would be useful for me to write down a few of my opinions, Read More...
Posted 09 September 06 01:39 by BradA | 8 Comments   
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PM tip# 11: Information is the Currency of Program Management
A huge differentiator between mediocre PMs and excellent PMs is how they deal with information. Anyone that has been a PM for more than a few days inherently knows that information – getting, distilling, combining and distributing of ideas – is a key Read More...
Posted 10 April 06 07:27 by BradA | 7 Comments   
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The Beta vs. CTP Dilemma
Over the last couple of years, the CTP or C ommunity T echnology P review has been one of the bigger changes in the way Microsoft release software. Microsoft introduced the concept of CTPs with the “Whidbey” .NET Framework and Visual Studio release but Read More...
Posted 03 April 06 08:11 by BradA | 32 Comments   
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PM Tip #72 Instant feedback...
One thing I love about blogs is the instant feedback aspects. While certainly comments on a blog are far from scientific you can get some great anecdotal responses that can help you see problems in a new way or provide some real-world data to backup one Read More...
Posted 30 March 06 11:44 by BradA | 1 Comments   
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PM Tip #21: Sanity Will Prevail
One of the core jobs of a PM is to hold tight to the vision of the product. There are a million things that can distract you and set you back. Features get cut, resources get moved, partners fail to deliver.. the list goes on and on. Many of these things Read More...
Posted 22 February 06 05:54 by BradA | 6 Comments   
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PM Tip # 32: Nothing kills excitement like ambiguity
As a PM, one of your key jobs is building excitement for your feature. This excitement is important among many different audiences. · Among potential customers for your feature – Customers rarely buy or adopt what they are not excited about. · Within Read More...
Posted 21 February 06 06:46 by BradA | 4 Comments   
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