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Scenario and Feature Frame
A Scenario and Feature Frame is a matrix that shows incremental value and dependencies.  It's a simple way to show management your baseline release, your nice to have scenarios, and your vNext planning.  It's also a great way for your development Read More...
Posted 11 October 08 11:37 by J.D. Meier | 3 Comments   
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Tests for Success
How do you identify the bull's-eye among your stakeholders?  Nothing's worse than finishing a project and missing the mark you didn't know was there. At patterns & practices, one of our effective project practices is to use "tests for success" Read More...
Posted 26 March 08 03:28 by J.D. Meier | 1 Comments   
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Turning Chickens into Pigs
Have you ever been on a project where key stakeholders don't have skin in the game, but they have a controlling vote?  This is a bad situation.  It's like multiple backseat drivers, except they won't be there if the car crashes.  What's Read More...
Posted 25 March 08 04:49 by J.D. Meier | 3 Comments   
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How To Differentiate
How can you differentiate what you do?  This can be particularly difficult in problem spaces that seem over-crowded.  It helps if you have a frame.  One of my mentors gave me a useful lens for differentiating that helps solve this problem. Read More...
Posted 24 March 08 03:50 by J.D. Meier | 1 Comments   
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Three keys of a business case
If you have to compete for resources or budget or sell an idea, one of the keys is a business case. One way to think of a business case is "how big is the pie" and "what's your slice." You use the business case either to argue for your project or in argument Read More...
Posted 20 December 07 12:50 by J.D. Meier | 2 Comments   
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Results-Focused Teams Over Role-Focused Teams
In my experience, talent and passion are the keys to effective teams. It's not better defined roles. In PM Tip#14: Great teams have members that defy roles , Brad Abrams writes that the best teams defy traditional roles and responsibilities, and I agree. Read More...
Posted 25 October 07 09:02 by J.D. Meier | 4 Comments   
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How To Use Time Boxing for Getting Results
Time boxing is a way to chunk up time and get results. If you continously miss windows of opportunity or spend all of your time in one area of your life at the expense of others, time boxing can be one of your best tools. A time box is simply a limited Read More...
Posted 21 October 07 10:46 by J.D. Meier | 7 Comments   
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Scenarios in Practice
Scenarios are a practical way to organize and focus your product design, development and release. (We use scenario-driven engineering in patterns & practices) Key Benefits Business value . You can use scenarios to evaluate business value. What pain Read More...
Posted 15 October 07 03:21 by J.D. Meier | 2 Comments   
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Vision Scope Template
How do you convince a team of venture capitalists to bet on you? There's a lot of ninja techniques but here I'll share the fundamentals. Vision and Scope We use Vision Scope milestones in patterns and practices to sell management on how we'll change the Read More...
Posted 04 October 07 03:34 by J.D. Meier | 2 Comments   
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One-Sliders
I showed a colleague of mine one of my tricks for building slide decks faster. It's a divide and conquer approach I've been using a few years. I do what I call "one-sliders." Whenever I build a deck, such as for milestone meetings, I create a set of single-slide Read More...
Posted 02 August 07 09:54 by J.D. Meier | 2 Comments   
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7 Habits of Highly Effective Program Managers
What does it take to be an effective Program Manager at Microsoft? I'm responding to some requests for my take on what it takes to be an effective PM. I figured I could use a familiar 7 habits approach to help frame out a start. To pick a set of habits, Read More...
Posted 09 April 07 06:47 by J.D. Meier | 6 Comments   
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David Anderson's Recipe for Success
David Anderson distills his software management learnings down into four bullets: Focus on Quality Reduce Work-in-progress Balance capacity against demand Prioritize He names this set a recipe for sucess. Here's what the recipe mean to me. Focus on Quality. Read More...
Posted 11 March 07 06:04 by J.D. Meier | 1 Comments   
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Influencing Without Authority
Today I got some relevant training for today's world - how to succeed when you don't have authority and control over execution. This is a common scenario in cross-team, cross-group scenarios. At Microsoft, you don't get rewarded by saying, "...if only Read More...
Posted 09 March 07 07:42 by J.D. Meier | 2 Comments   
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My Personal Approach for Daily Results
I'm dedicating this post to anybody who's faced with task saturation, or needs some new ideas on managing their days or weeks... One of the most important techniques I share with those I mentor, is how to manage To Dos. It's too easy to experience churn Read More...
Posted 04 February 07 02:46 by J.D. Meier | 16 Comments   
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2 Key Process Pitfalls
If I had to pick two easily corrected issues I see show up time and again, I'd pick: Optimizing the wrong thing. Optimizing your process, when what you need is a different process. Two questions I think help: "What do you want to optimize?" (time? money? Read More...
Posted 03 February 07 03:51 by J.D. Meier | 1 Comments   
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