point A to point B, and they say, okay, I know I have to have this release now, and that release in six months, and another release in a year and a half. And they're ready to lay the groundwork for that, in whatever release they're doing, not realizing that by laying the groundwork, they're actually going to push the release date out, which will make the eventual, final product, the thing that they want to actually accomplish, very, very difficult to accomplish. So I see this a lot with project managers. I see it a lot in middle managers too. Middle managers get this from both sides. Their employees want them to do one thing, and their senior managers want them to do something else.
Carol: And we will be back with more of Johanna Rothman and Quality Plus e-Talk! with Carol Dekkers after these short messages. Please stay tuned.
Welcome to Quality Plus e-Talk! with Carol Dekkers. I'm Carol Dekkers, president of Quality Plus Technologies, Inc., an acknowledged leader and provider of professional software measurement and function point analysis services. We cater to, and we look after the people who actually build software. We make sure that they help others build software better, we help users, we help people who are really challenged with building better software. And we'd like to thank our sponsor, StickyMinds.com, for helping out with that, with our sponsorship. Today, we've been talking to Johanna Rothman, who is a specialist, a private consultant, who specializes in going into organizations and making them work better. Our forte is really in the software development area. And that's the theme of this set of season's shows, is really on how to help make software better. How to build it better, how to work with it better, how to test it better. The whole gamut. So if you're new to the show, if it's the first time you're listening through the Internet, we'd like to welcome you. And I'd like to get back to talking to Johanna Rothman, who has recently written a paper in STQE magazine, called "What Do They Pay You to Do?" Now, before the break, before our first break, we were talking a little bit about what do you mean by "what they pay you to do." And we mentioned that Johanna has written the article primarily for people who do software testing. When software's ready to actually be released, or far down the line, when code is first started. And even before that, testers get involved to make sure that software is going to run the way it's supposed to. Now, Johanna has been in a lot of organizations, and observes a lot of things. And can I just get you to kind of paraphrase again what you were talking about, about what is the challenge of people not knowing what they're paid to do?
Johanna: You have a mismatch between what you want to do and what your organization wants you to do. And the larger the mismatch, the less work you're going to do that's of value to the organization. And especially now with this economy, the last thing you want to do is work that's not valuable to the organization. That leads directly to being fired and being laid off. So you want to make sure that the work you're doing is perceived as valuable. That's why you want to do work that the company pays you to do. On the other hand, you can't get away from the fact that we're human beings, that we have brains, and we're
About the author
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” helps organizational leaders see problems and risks in their product development. She helps them recognize potential “gotchas,” seize opportunities, and remove impediments. Johanna was the Agile 2009 conference chair. She is the technical editor for Agile Connection and the author of these books:
- Manage Your Job Search
- Hiring Geeks That Fit
- Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
- The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
- Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management
- Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People
Johanna is working on a book about agile program management. She writes columns for Stickyminds.com and projectmanagementcom and blogs on her website, jrothman.com, as well on createadaptablelife.com.
