News Bytes | The Georgetowner
In D.C., in-hand phone use while driving is illegal. Well, apparently Fox News anchor Bret Baier missed the memo. After footage of Baier, 55, being pulled| The Georgetowner
In D.C., in-hand phone use while driving is illegal. Well, apparently Fox News anchor Bret Baier missed the memo. After footage of Baier, 55, being pulled| The Georgetowner
The various AI vendors want us to trust their autonomous agents. I have several problems I would love to use AI to solve. (Including updating all the tags on this site!) However, I cannot trust the agents yet. Even when I use interactive prompting, I'm not happy with the results. Those results can change (non-deterministic […] The post A Management Minute: Who Deserves Your Trust: AI Agent, Your Team, or Your Network appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
This week, my podcast is the opening of a short story, a portal fantasy. Enjoy! The Podcast: The Transcript: This is 60 Seconds of Writing in Public with Johanna Rothman for October 10, 2025, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some writing in progress. This is the opening of a (hopefully) […] The post 2025.36 Portal Fantasy Short Story Opening appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
In Project Charter Part 2: Clarify the Project Driver, Boundaries, and Constraints for This Project, I explained how project risks can affect the team's approach to the work. But project risks are not the same as product risks. Product risks are about the need for product innovation. The more innovation this product needs, the more […] The post Project Charter Part 3: How Product Risks Can Support or Change Your Feedback Loop Choices appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
Let me set the context for this post about the project charter: By now, the team knows what it has to accomplish because they have a product vision. The next question is: How will the team manage their risks to achieve those outcomes? That's where I recommend a team define its project driver, up to […] The post Project Charter Part 2: Clarify the Project Driver, Boundaries, and Constraints for This Project appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
My podcast this week is from a fiction story. After I wrote this part, I realized I started in the wrong place. So you get the benefit of reading something I will definitely change later today. Yes, I write fiction exactly the same way I write nonfiction. I start where I think the piece starts. […] The post 2025.35 Solarpunk Short Story Opening appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
Does your team have an overarching goal for its work—a product vision? Too many teams do not. The whole point of a project is to deliver a useful product that satisfies its customers. I like to think about projects as a container of some product value. That means that a given release does not need […] The post Project Charter Part 1: Write (And Test) a Product Vision for This Project appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
This week's podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. The cover people are working on a back cover, which means I'm close, close, close to the end of the publication work. Yay! The Podcast: The Transcript: This is 60 Seconds of Writing in Public with Johanna Rothman for September 19, 2025, where I read […] The post 2025.34 Black Boxes on a Virtual Presentation appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
Does your team have a project charter so they know what to do for this project? I see too many teams try to start work without one. That leads to feature factories, apparently random work that does not add value, or worse, a product that's partly done in too many areas. Teams start without project […] The post How to Create a Useful Project Charter in Less Time Than You Think: Overview appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
Are you trying to change people's minds? Data can help. But data is not enough. We all need stories to make that human connection. That's the point of the podcast I recorded with Sam Taggart: Storytelling is Problem Solving. (That's the link to the podcast for audio listening.) That page also has a link to […] The post Storytelling is Problem Solving on the LabView Experiment Podcast appeared first on Johanna Rothman.| Johanna Rothman
D.C. mayor announces new labor agreement with police union, providing pay increases and initiatives to boost recruitment and retention.| The Washington Informer
This week's podcast is from the Effective Public Speaking book. A funny thing happened on the way to the podcast. I've been heads-down, proofing and finishing the book. I plan to start the index today. That's all finishing the book. I hate this part, but if I don't do it, I can't publish the book. […]| 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
Several of my clients want to plan the product roadmap and then “work to the plan.” They think the roadmap is the long-term goal. But roadmaps aren't goals. Instead, they are tactics for achieving a long-term goal. That means we need long-term goals based on both the corporate strategy and each product's strategy. Those are two […]| Johanna Rothman
Many of my consulting and job-searching colleagues feel stuck in finding clients or jobs. Social media used to work, but it doesn't anymore. But people actually have more options for discoverability (aka marketing) than ever before. That's writing, speaking, and connecting people who might not know about each other. The more we write, speak, and […]| 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
