Berkun reading group discussion

I promised to launch a "retrospective" after week 1.

Let's take a moment to reflect on this process for Chapters 1 and 2. Please answer one or more of the following questions:


1. What did you like, that we should keep doing?

2. What didn't work well, that we should consider stopping?

3. What are 1 or 2 things that we could change, as an experiment, for the next two week period?



Thank you, and don't hesitate to ask more and different questions.



Frequent retrospectives are a powerful Agile project management practice. Rather than waiting until the end of the project to find out what worked, we check in after every sprint.

(Thanks Lisa!) I'm just happy folks have shown up so far. I'd say I can use more criticism - what did I get wrong? what sections haven't aged well? I'd like to come out of this with notes for a free e-book I can write or new chapters to give away.

1. I liked reading the different perspectives shared by our reading group.
2. Threaded comments would be helpful when reading response/replies on our threads.
3. There were many footnotes with quality references that Scott has highlighted in each chapter. I would prefer if we can rank some of the reference material. It's overwhelming trying to select which references to read.

I consider myself a novice when it comes to the history of project management and the earlier phases of a software development lifecycle. Scott, when we get to the implementation stage, testing, and post-release stage of a project, you will receive more active feedback from me.


By the way, I volunteer for the next retrospective.

Thanks Ravi!

It looks like we are not receiving much feedback from our retrospective. So, my goal for this week is to determine how to get more feedback for our retrospectives?

There is so much rich material in "Making Things Happen" that I want to remember without re-reading the book. I reviewed my study methods and decided to create flashcards - https://www.brainscape.com/packs/5376...

There are many online sites or products for flashcards. I selected one that was easy for me to use. I have no affiliation with this product or the owners.

As I continue to make notes and think about ideas in each chapter, I think it would be helpful to have a section called "Putting Ideas into action". The purpose of this section would help you think about the concepts or ideas present and apply them to your projects.

Ravi: Thanks for going meta with a retrospective on our retrospectives :)

Putting Ideas Into Action is certainly interesting. The hope with the exercises was to help make that happen (ha ha) for readers, but perhaps there's something else here.

Scott, perhaps we should put together a reading list for PM's.

1. PM Novice
2. PM Intermediate
3. PM Advanced

I've reviewed my notes and I have about seven books that I plan to read so far.

How about writing an article on how to hire or interview a PM? I've seen this poorly done in many places.

Reading the book suggested by Scott on project managemetn case studies - "Roundtable on Project Management". This is a gem and provides additional examples on managing situations. But, James Bullock is hard to follow because of his pithy zen-like comments.

I am working on creating at least 5 case studies within my firm for training PM's/Engineers. I think we need to introduce more simulations in our training for engineers and PM's.