"Owning the launch too" and "The 2-week plan"

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1041-owning-the-launch-too-and-the-2-week-plan

by drm237 • 18 years ago

19 17 18 years ago

37signals.com

antidaily• 18 years ago

2 week plan seems smart. Forces the issue.

edw519• 18 years ago

I think these 37signals blog posts are great!

I can't think of a single idea of theirs that I've adopted (some of them seem downright silly), but that's not the point. Their "against the grain" thinking adds a little perspective against all the corporate mind-numbing B.S. I'm so accustomed to seeing. These are people trying things out and sharing with us, not just some ivory tower "experts".

Very refreshing. Keep 'em coming.

julieb2• 18 years ago

I completely agree - the new way of looking at issues pushes things to the extreme sometimes, but always makes me reevaluate.

swombat5• 18 years ago

Heh... 37signals rediscovers the basics of project management :-)

Clear, individual ownership of pieces of work is a cornerstone of effective project management.

pchristensen2• 18 years ago

Dan, each comment includes the author (swombat in your case). You don't need to keep signing them.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please don't sign comments, especially with your url. They're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile."

swombat5• 18 years ago

I don't sign comments with my URL. That said, I'm afraid signing with my name is a habit I've developed over the last 12 years of posting online, and it would take a sizeable conscious effort to get rid of it. Since it doesn't bother me in the least, I don't.

Why does it bother you so much?

pistoriusp• 18 years ago

The term "project management" makes me shudder... Fills my mind with boring, borg-like and frustrating memories of working in the corporate environment.

swombat5• 18 years ago

It shouldn't. Project management is even more essential in a startup than in a corporation. Effective project management often makes the difference between an undirected, shambolic effort with no real goal and a focused drive towards a concrete objective. It's particularly important if you have more than 2 people working on developing a product.

Bad project managers abound, but great project managers are as priceless and essential as great coders.

Daniel

trevelyan• 18 years ago

Totally agree. I've seen these situations arise mostly when managers task problems to be solved as they stumble into them, instead of actually knowing what needs to be done and who will be doing it when.

The result is everyone waiting on some guy to clear his MORE critical projects. In a lot of cases, the same projects end up needing a lot more support than they think, simply because they have no clue what development actually involves and didn't plan to train anyone on their own team on that (we'll do what we know how to do first...).

Anyway... your point is totally on. Can't say I sympathize much with the company though. This shouldn't be a problem with an empowered team. And blanket messages telling people to just "go and do it" sound like a meta-management problem. If you need to blog about it, your company is probably too big for that sort of approach to work.

staunch• 18 years ago

Being willing to drop projects is probably the hardest thing for most organizations to do. Allowing projects to be killed without any shame or stigma is so healthy in the long run.

"Owning the launch too" and "The 2-week plan"

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