go to collect a paycheck," you actually have another reason for coming to work in the morning. So, what's the thing that drives you? Do I need to stop, Carol?
Carol: Yeah, we do. We're going to go into a break. And thank you for joining us. We'll be back after this short break with more of Johanna Rothman and Quality Plus e-Talk! with Carol Dekkers. Stay tuned.
(Commercial break)
Carol: I'm Carol Dekkers, and you are listening to Quality Plus e-Talk! with Carol Dekkers. With our guest this week, Johanna Rothman, who has been talking about "What is it they really pay you to do?" In a system development or system testing job. Now, before we get back into the questions, and Johanna's article that she has been writing, and the book that she's in the process of, I just want to give you something from our company, from Quality Plus Technologies. I would like to offer any of our listeners the opportunity to have a function point analysis meets the Software Engineering Institute CMMI model. We have a calendar that actually shows that for you. And there's a few months left in the year. So anyone who's interested in the calendar, I'd like you to send me an email at dekkers@qualityplustech.com, and I'd be happy to send that to you. As well, if you have any questions, comments, or anything that you would like to submit in terms of upcoming guest questions, I invite you to do that by going to our e-talk home page, at StickyMinds.com/etalk, and there you'll see past shows, you'll be able to listen live, and you can actually send us comments and concerns and questions for upcoming guests. So Johanna, welcome back to the show.
Johanna: Thank you.
Carol: We were talking about avoiding this mismatch. And I think it's probably even more important today than any other time in history, when the recession's hitting, and when we've got people worried about their jobs, that we're actually doing the jobs that our employers expect us to do. And what they pay us to do. And it really sounds like it's communication issues, but I think it goes deeper than just basic communication. Can you comment on that?
Johanna: Yeah. I think that, as I was saying before the break, there are different things that drive each of us. So it's not just communication with your manager or with your peers. It's sort of knowing what kind of a person are you, and why is it that you come to work every day. You'd asked me before about a dangerous mission. And there actually are at least a couple of dangerous missions. I think if I thought about this for longer than a nanosecond, I'd come up with half a dozen more. But the big ones are when you take on strategic decisions, things that should be business, strategic decisions, and you decide that you have to make those decisions yourself. And the two of them that I came up with are, the first one that's classic for testers and test managers, is when you're responsible for ship decisions. Ship decisions are absolutely a business decision. It's a strategic decision, it has revenue impact. And if you're in an IT organization, where you don't actually ship a product, but you release it to your internal users, it's exactly the same as if you were shipping something for revenue. Because your whole integrity, your organization depends upon you doing the right thing. You can't possibly know what the right thing is if you don't
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.
