Interview with Johanna Rothman

Today we host Johanna Rothman, and she is challenged with the heuristic “Get the team in a rhythm” from the Xebia Essentials repository (https://essentials.xebia.com/team-rhythm/). She starts explaining how the team rhythm and feedback cycles are connected and can strengthen each other. We discuss the role of a manager, and also how the managers should operate as a team, rather than be an extension of a team. Last but not the least, she shares her experiences with agile leadership, where it is necessary to move between discovery and delivery modes. And she left us with a heuristic, “Prune the decision tree”. Johanna recommends:

• Multiple shot feedback loops support innovation: https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2020/12/multiple-short-feedback-loops-support-innovation/
• The pretty link for all three Modern Management Made Easy books: https://www.jrothman.com/mmme
• The hiring book: https://www.jrothman.com/hiring
• Multiple short feedback loops support innovation: https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2020/12/multiple-short-feedback-loops-support-innovation/
• Some posts on management cohorts:
  • https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2021/03/management-peer-cohort-vs-team-pairing-and-mobbing/
  • https://www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager/2021/01/create-your-peer-management-team-for-fun-and-profit-and-to-solve-problems/

Johanna Rothman (@johannarothman), known as the “Pragmatic Manager”, offers frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams do reasonable things that work. Equipped with that knowledge, they can decide how to adapt their product development.

With her trademark practicality and humour, Johanna is the author of 18 books about many aspects of product development. Her most recent books are the Modern Management Made Easy series, From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams, and Create Your Successful Agile Project. Find the Pragmatic Manager, a monthly email newsletter, and her blogs at jrothman.com and createadaptablelife.com.