This is Johanna Rothman's September 2025 Pragmatic Manager newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Humans excel at seeing problem signals—the signs that we have a problem. However, we often have blind spots about the root causes of those problems. Our beliefs and/or insufficient or irrelevant data reinforce those blind spots. […] The post How to See the Blind Spots That Maintain the Current System, Useful or Useless appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
I've been quieter than usual on all the socials and in my writing because I'm deep into finishing the Effective Public Speaking book. (I'm proofing that book today.) That's because I'm stuck between the tension of finishing this project and starting a new project. I love starting projects. Once I decide to start a project […] The post How to Resolve the Tension Between Starting and Finishing Any Work appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
I've heard that the AA/PMI wants to create a manifesto for enterprise agility. I'm not sure we need a manifesto, but that's fine. Here are the necessary conditions for enterprise agility: A culture of flow efficiency thinking. That means everyone collaborates across the organization to optimize up for one overarching goal. Limited planning horizons, with […]| Johanna Rothman
This is the August 2024 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. Problems. They're always there, just waiting to pop up and say, “Surprise! Gotcha!” I don't mind new problems, but the sneaky problems, the ones that reappear after I thought I fixed them? I really […]| Johanna Rothman
When Mark, my husband, and I moved into this house a decade ago, we faced the problem many other people face: what to keep and what to toss (or recycle, etc.). Mark had a particularly difficult time with the kitchen drawer that held all the old baby dishes and utensils. I wanted to toss everything […]| Johanna Rothman
Are you trying to use story points for estimation? If so, you might have encountered these problems: Story points reflect the ideal thinking of the team, not the actual experience of the team. Your managers don't want story points—they want durations and dates. In the absence of sufficient information, everyone makes up fiction (human stories) […]| Johanna Rothman
