2007 kind of fizzled out here at Raven's Brain - I got caught up in the holiday whirlwind and didn't get a chance to wish everyone Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year -- so Happy 2008!

I also didn't get to a lot of posts and articles saved throughout the year and, though I know lists of links are not the best way to share great content, I do need to clean out my bookmarks and saved items to make room for the new year. Categories covered are Project management, Agile, Management & Leadership, Business, Software & Technology, Personal Growth and GRRRL Power.

Below is a list of the great stuff I found throughout 2007:

Project Management

• Advice from the Fiddler on the Project
  I listened to Rich Maltzman talking about his forthcoming book Fiddler on the Project (co-authored with Ranjit Biswas) on Controlling Chaos, way back in July. We’ve been corresponding since, trying to find time to talk about project management and authoring. I finally got round to asking him some questions last week, and from the sounds of it, the Fiddler book is going to be a really interesting read..
• Agile or Waterfall…does it matter?
  First off…let me answer the question: Does it matter if I use Agile or Waterfall methodologies in my project? My opinion is no…it doesn’t matter…but there are a few caveats to that answer. Read on..
• Organizational Alignment and Project Success
  Organization Alignment seems like one of those ‘touchy feely’ things that most technical folks would rather not discuss but it’s actually quite relevant to success in todays technology and project driven organizations.
• How to create a Pareto Chart (see below)
  Pareto Charts are commonly used to identify the source of chronic problems / common causes in a process. The Pareto principal commonly states that 80 % of the trouble comes from 20 % of the problems. A Pareto chart is a graphical technique which quantifies problems in order to position efforts to be expended in fixing the “vital few” causes versus to the trivial many.
• Pareto And Management (see above, below)
  In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. In the late 1940s, Dr.Joseph M.Juran inaccurately attributed the 80/20 Rule to Pareto, calling it Pareto’s Principle.
• How useful is the Pareto Principle? (see above)
  The Pareto Principle is often quoted as a way to save time and effort and thus lower pressure. In theory, it’s a great idea. And, if you look back at the past, it can seem quite easy to identify the 20% of situations, actions, or even people that generated 80% of the returns. But is it quite as simple as it appears?
• Requirements Value
  This article will explore a different approach to gathering requirements that would not only deliver a full release, but maximize the business value as well.
• Requirements Practices Every Project Manager Must Know
  The practices presented in this article--to build a requirements tree, create and use a requirements traceability matrix, and manage to requirements baselines--will make a significant difference in an organization's success rate and promote improved partnership and standing within the enterprise.
• Perception and Reality in Stakeholder Management
  Even when everything seems to be going well, things may not be as rosy as you think. All the facts might point to success, but perceptions can often trump that reality. Here's some practical advice on aligning how things are and how they appear.
• Leadership-Powered Project Management
  Read on for successful traits to propel you from project manager to leader--and discover the single greatest and most underestimated leadership attribute you should not ignore.
• How to Improve Project Sponsorship
  Some years ago, I worked as a PMO manager for a multinational company in which business managers were assigned as project sponsors for the whole project life cycle. Results were not very good because project managers often felt alone when dealing with customers. As a solution, I organized a workshop meeting with the project sponsors...
• Project Management Confidence
  If you have been doing project management for a while, your confidence has probably gotten an occasional shaking. And the resulting lack of confidence hurts you, but it also hurts your team members who need you to be confident and not self-conscious.
• Study for the PMP Exam on Your iPod
  Cornelius Fitchner, the project management podcasting pioneer (see The PMPodcast.com), has done it again. This time, he has created The Project Management PrepCast(tm), a new and unique way to study for the PMP exam.
• Marc Evers: Failure is not an option … it’s a necessity
  Lots of IT projects are said to fail - many people are complaining, calling shame on the IT profession. An example is the recent article Okay to fail from the CIO Weblog, which talks about poorly run projects and underperformance.
• What Project Managers Need To Know About Testing
  What happens when project managers of cross-organizational teams don't have all the cross-functional team knowledge, such as testing, they need to manage all the teams? In this week's column, Johanna Rothman explains that managers in this situation might have a recipe for disaster. But with careful planning, any project manager can quickly turn it around and create an efficient team and a career development opportunity for everyone.
• The problems with problem statements
• Johanna Rothman: Too Simple a Definition of a Project

Agile

• The High Cost of Management Indecision
  Rob Walling writes about the high cost of management indecision on software projects.
• Agile Project Management: What's In It For The Customers?
  One question I'm asked frequently is how Agile project management is different from traditional project management.
• Paul Duvall - ?Am I Agile or Not??
  This is one of the more annoying questions I get. Nothing against the people that ask this question. It’s a perfectly reasonable question for someone to ask.
• No Really, What is Agile?
  My friend Rich Zeliff commented on my post which attempted to define Agile...
• Top Ten Agile Analogies
• What is Your Impression of Agile?
• Layman's Manifesto
  Here is Jason Yip's more personable version of the Agile Manifesto.
• Scrum and XP Practices: Cross Reference
  I've had several people tell me how useful the Scrum/XP cross-reference in our book is, so I thought I'd share it with you, too.
• Agile Project Management Manifesto
  Similar to the Agile Manifesto, a group of ten people have gotten together and worked out a small number of principles for "modern (agile/adaptive) (product/project) management".
• Is the Agile Manifesto Appropriate for My Domain?
  A post by Jason Yip prompted a thought. Is the Agile Manifesto Appropriate in my domain. Or for that matter, in what domains is the Agile Manifesto appropriate?

Management & Leadership

• How to swim with sharks
  I came across this article the other day, and it was remarkably suitable. So I’ll share for those who are where I have been.   HOW TO SWIM WITH SHARKS: A PRIMER By Voltaire Cousteau
• Leading Geeks
  Ralph Nader once said, "I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers". In the IT world is is hard to produce leaders and it is doubly hard to produce and keep followers.
• There's a hole in your side of the boat
• How Can a Leader Avoid Becoming a Selfish Jerk? 245 Answers on LinkedIn
• How Common Sense Leaders Avoid Alienating the People They Lead
• Common Sense Advice for Developing Leaders
• More on Teamwork
• Questions leaders ask themselves
• Constructive conflict is essential for creating commitment to decisions
• Leaders connect with the people
• 13 Sources of Workplace Irritation
  Who gets to you at work? What gets to you at work? What are those things that irritate you the most?
• Motivation: Gag me with a Carrot
  STOP! No more books about employee motivation with a carrot or batch of carrots on the cover.   I am sick of carrots and sticks. Don’t treat me like an elephant. Carrot and stick (also spelled “carrot-and-stick”) is an idiom used to refer to the act of rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior.
• 7 ways to be a damn good manager
• 37 Unhabits of Highly Successful Managers
• The best of Slacker Manager
• Delegation is art and science
  Delegation. Does the word evoke strong, perhaps other-than-positive, emotions in you? If it does, you’re not alone. If there is a single most misunderstood or misused concept in business, the delegation process is the leading candidate.
• The forgotten power of conversation
  Talking to others, rather than at them, is becoming a forgotten art Conversation is becoming a lost art, replaced by endless talk. To converse is to share ideas and learn from one another in the process.
• Are we losing our understanding of trust?
  It’s a mistake to underestimate the importance of trust to a civilized life   If you google the word “trust,” it can be a surprising experience. I was more than 20 pages into the results before meeting a single instance of trust in the sense of belief in something or someone.

Business, Software & Technology

• Training Requirements for 2008
  What with a growing shortage of technical talent, companies have to pick up the slack and spend more on training. What training innovations can we look forward to? Read on..
• Got pecha-kucha? (see below)
  PowerPoint is like the weather or Dancing With the Stars: Everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything. Enter Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, two European ex-pat architects in Tokyo, who've come up with an elegant hack. Use 20 slides. No more, no less. Each slide must be on the screen for exactly 20 seconds. (The presenter doesn't control the slide advancer.)
• Pecha Kucha (see above)
  My ebook Really Bad Powerpoint has generated plenty of mail and comment in the years since I wrote it. I just wish everyone would read it. Now, though, Rick points us to Pecha Kucha Night.
• There is no Bug. It is not the Bug that Bends, it is Only Yourself
• Desiging Software is the same as Predicting the Future
• How to Build a Somewhat Successful Blog: 16 Lessons I Have Learned
• 2008 Predictions - SOA, Grid, SCA, Web 2.0, REST, etc.
• Social Network Aggregation, Killer App in 2008?
  Managing scattered online Social Life on multiple Social Networking sites, I sense, will become a Killer App Category 2008. There are several startups now in the "Social Network Aggregation" space and this App Category should diversify and catch momentum in 2008.
• Dvorak Looks Back At 'Another Crappy Tech Year'
  The Vista Death Watch is PC Magazine's most popular column. That is just one of many items in Dvorak's review of yet another 'disappointing' year in Technology. 'I was not a fan of 2007. It was another crappy tech year...
• How To Lose Your Job, Thanks To The Internet
  The New York Times has up an article discussing the trend of employers tracking the 'free time' activities of their employees via their web presence.

Personal Growth

• Don't multitask
  Kevin Fox identifies multitasking as one of the main reasons why projects take so long and are still completed late. He says there are three central reasons organizations find themselves in the trap of multitasking...
• Taming the Savage Beast: Dealing with Negativity at Work
  Have you ever worked with one of those people who are so unfailingly negative that they tend to suck all of the life out of a room? The person who has an objection to every idea, a snide comment for...
• Venting, Whining, and Ranting: Dealing with Frustration at Work
  Today I'd like to poke a little bit at the idea that venting is a healthy workplace behavior. Most of us have vented to a coworker from time to time - and I'm certainly no exception. When frustrations rise and...
• The Art of Winning Others Over
• Remaining an Artist
  Katie Ledger’s blog features a witty and insightful speech titled ‘What Should We Teach Our Children’ by Sir Ken Robinson at the famous TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) symposium which includes a powerful message about embracing failure to drive creativity..
• How To Become An “Active” Listener
  Your role in the leadership situation alternates between sender and receiver of messages. The very best leaders devote a large portion of their time listening - in order to better understand. Some Thoughts About Good Listening: Creative ability is geared to perceptiveness. Your ears are as important to perception as your eyes.
• Dissatisfied at work? Perhaps it’s you
  Just about every month, there’s a new research report detailing the seemingly higher and higher degree of worker dissatisfaction. Whether it’s a Gallup poll or a Conference Board report, the results are strikingly similar — workers are becoming more and more dissatisfied with their work.
• 5 Reasons Why You Should Simplify What You Say, and How to Do It
  “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere”. Lee Iacocca One of the trickier things about social skills is to get your message across. One reason why people have difficulty with this is because they use more words than needed.
• How to Make a Great First Impression
  First impressions can be quite important. Everyone stereotypes everyone on first impression, even if we are reluctant to do it. We all get a first impression of a new person that creates a mental image of his or her personality in our minds.
• First Impressions
  I was recently interviewed by Josh Hinds of BusinessNetworkingAdvice.com, and he asked me a very good question: "How do you generally engage a person in conversation upon first meeting them?"
• Ten Rules of Effective Language

GRRRL Power

• The Gender Gap
  Each week Computing and Computer Weekly rehash old material about how important it is to get more women working in IT and how terrible it is that there is unfair treatment in the workplace. I’m sure there is unfair treatment in many workplaces, although I’ve been fortunate enough never to experience any.
• A question of shopping
  There were plenty of questions about project management at last week’s womenintechnology event on how to be a successful woman in IT. Mainly people were interested in how to break into project management.
• The Ripple Effects of A**holes: When Women Are Treated Badly, Everyone Suffers
• Tech Republic’s Women in IT series: Esther Dyson
  Sonja Thompson, a news editor at Tech Republic, has launched a Women in IT podcast series, which consist of interviews of women who are currently working in IT, their careers and technology in general.

posted by Raven Young under Raven's Brain
Tags: Raven's Brain, Management, Business, Leadership, Agile, Project Management, Technology, Personal Growth