eManagr News

If you’ve been following along here, you already know this article is the long-promised what makes a good manager story.  It has been derailed several times, most prominently when Vineet Nayar spoke out on perceived deficiencies in American programmers a couple of weeks ago.

The article grew and I want to move towards smaller, more readable articles.  So, the big article is now a series.

Before I get started, though, I definitely need to tip my imaginary hat to the fortieth anniversary of the Moon Landing.  With few tools and less hard data than most of us take to the supermarket, plus more than a few wonderfully demented mishaps, a bunch of civilians and military men managed to organize themselves well enough to get human beings to the Moon and back, and invent a few great technologies along the way.  Just…wow.

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Last week’s post got eaten.  Its been promised for, what, three weeks now?  Well, it’s being revised into a series of articles on project management.  Plus, we wanted to hold off for another week to account for the new WordPress release.

Oh, right.  We’re also experimenting with Twitter.  And Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »

Here I was, all set to talk about what management really is (or should be, in my opinion), and the Microsoft’s Indian partner plops this in our collective laps:  Most American Graduates are Unemployable.  Go ahead and read it.  I’ll wait here.

Ready?  Basically, since:

• I’m an American programmer,
• The criticism doesn’t really apply exclusively to programmers,
• eManagr is about removing the burdens of process, and
• Everybody else is screaming about these comments,

I might as well gripe, too.  At least admit that it’s better than another Michael Jackson tribute. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I get moving, I hope that everybody’s Father’s Day went well.  Mother’s Day happens to have the more interesting history (for which you’ll need to wait until next May), so there isn’t much to say past that.

Now, my original plan for this Monday was to talk about what managers actually do, and start some discussion over time about what distinguishes a good manager from a bad manager.

That piece wasn’t coming together and I was on the verge of scrapping it completely when somebody coincidentally reminded me of a favorite gem, Bill Swanson’s “Unwritten” Rules of Management at AllBusiness.

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As we finish the overview of eManagr’s main ideas (teams here, estimates here), we come to the user profile.

Always remember, eManagr isn’t Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time, we kicked around eManagr’s “Hollywood”-style teams and why we suggest the plan. This week, we talk about the core of any project plan, work estimates.

Repeat after me: The quality of a project and its schedule are directly related to the quality of estimates.

Of course, there isn’t a problem with this. There are many problems with it. Read the rest of this entry »

Teams are important to eManagr, so much so that the project’s codename was “TeamrUp;” its job, after all, is to be a “teamer” for you. While the scope quickly expanded beyond a typical distributed spreadsheet (I’m looking at you, Team System), the teams have remained a core priority.

What’s the big deal? Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t want to read about us patting ourselves on the back some, move right along. Next Monday, we’re going to start talking about the components of eManagr’s approach to management, which you can apply even if you’re not using our service, so check back then.
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It’s not a Gantt chart, but it should be close enough for a lot of people.

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I’m a believer in “credit where credit is due.” I’m also a non-believer in proprietary information. So, while we’re not releasing eManagr’s source code, I’d very much like to show off the technologies we’re using to make eManagr do its job, particularly since the overwhelming majority of tools are Open Source and are worthy of support. Apologies in advance to the non-technical.
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