Johanna Rothman

Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” provides frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams see problems and resolve risks and manage their product development.

She was the agileconnection.com technical editor for six years. Johanna is the author of these books:

From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver (with Mark Kilby)
Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver
Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, 2nd edition
Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
Project Portfolio Tips: Twelve Ideas for Focusing on the Work You Need to Start & Finish
Diving for Hidden Treasures: Finding the Value in Your Project Portfolio (with Jutta Eckstein)
Predicting the Unpredictable: Pragmatic Approaches to Estimating Project Schedule or Cost
Manage Your Job Search
Hiring Geeks That Fit
The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby)

Read her blog and other articles on her site, jrothman.com. She also writes a personal blog on createadaptablelife.com.

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All Stories by Johanna Rothman

What Do You Do on a Snow Day?

Extreme weather happens, and it can make getting into the office difficult (or impossible). Do you try to collaborate remotely? What if everyone else is taking the day off? If you still want to get some work done (instead of building snowmen), here are some perfect tasks you can do on your own.

If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Time to Innovate

If you feel like you are getting stretched too thin at this time of year and just have too much to accomplish, Johanna Rothman understands. She has some suggestions that help her get back on track, including prioritizing the big things first, taking breaks, and not letting yourself stay stuck.

What Do You Want This Holiday Season? Three Tips for the Overwhelmed

It’s the holiday season again. As you run around preparing for everyone else, consider what you need. Especially when you are stressed—and the holidays seem to bring out the stress in everyone—take time for yourself. Prioritize, manage tasks, and create action plans, and you can enjoy the season!

Is Your Career a Trick or a Treat?

Have you ever felt tricked by a job you thought would be a treat? Or have you had a job that was once a treat but turned into a trick because you kept doing it year in, year out? Don't get spooked. Johanna Rothman has some tips about what you can do to turn your job into a treat once more.

Beware of Serial Status Meetings

Standup meetings are great in many instances. But if you're calling serial status meetings, you may find that people will stop attending. To engage employees and address issues quicker, you may want to try lean coffee or a problem-solving meeting. Read on for tips on involving your team.

Take a More Agile Approach to Problem Solving

Your managers want you to estimate features or projects months or even years in advance. But the work changes—or the code changes, or the people on the project change. What you thought might be a reasonable estimate four weeks ago looks wacko when you revisit it in six months. What can you do?

AgileConnection Update: Transitions, Distributed Teams, and Managers

Johanna Rothman, technical editor of AgileConnection, highlights some of the content that's being published on the site, including articles about using certain agile practices on an otherwise traditional project, the challenges of distributed teams, and another myth for misguided managers.

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