Episodes

This episode is a collection of some of my favorite things. It was inspired by some similar things I shared in a recent podcast interview on How to be Awesome at your Job. Links and recommended books My mission statement and it’s theme of Ownership Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin QBQ! the Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work by John G. Miller The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard The Miracle Morni...

Listener Feedback and Questions This episode responds to listener questions and feedback from two previous episodes around how to collaboratively create meeting minutes and how a central mailing list repository for meeting minutes works. How to Invite the Right People to Your Meetings (007) Avoiding the Dreaded Meeting Roll Call (008) Discussion About Etherpad Etherpad is a collaborative text editor anyone with a web browser and and hosted instance can use. Wikipedia history of Etherpad Eth...

This episode covers some of my thoughts on a recent return from vacation and how to keep the vacation glow going for as long as possible. Nothing is more disappointing to me than watching it evaporate 30 minutes into the first day back. As you are preparing to leave Leave a clear trail of what you need to work on when you return. I like using Trello cards for this. Set your email auto-responder to start a few hours before the end of the day before you will be gone and to end a few hours into ...

You can’t know if you’re ready to release unless you know what done means. …. When you use release criteria to know when a project is done, you have taken potentially hidden decisions and made them public and clear. Make your release criteria objective and measurable, so everyone on the project knows what they’re working towards. Use the criteria as you progress through the project and up to the final release. Then you can say ‘Release it!’ with pride. — Johanna Rothman The quote above is from...

This episode talks about coaching and uses the recent Netflix documentary “I am Not Your Guru” as the the jumping off point. The documentary examines Anthony Robbins’ “Date with Destiny” event and his approach to helping people change. Topics and links covered in this episode: I am not Your Guru on Netflix The importance of restarting and Michael Hyatt’s podcast The difference between coaching vs. therapy The coach is not an an “expert” or a “guru” Rapid change is possible Sign-up for a fr...

In this episode I share a super easy way to take attendance at meetings–don’t! Instead have attendees take do their own check-in by adding themselves to the minutes (in a shared document). My meeting agendas are a shared document (which everyone at the meeting has access to) which morph into the minutes in real time as the meeting progresses. At the beginning of the meeting I remind everyone to register their presence and that’s it. This has the added bonus of avoiding the dreaded, gut wrenchin...

This episode examines the process I use and suggest to decide who to invite to specific meetings. People to Invite In general, the best people to invite are those who can: Make decisions Give valuable input and insights Move things forward People Not to Invite Inviting the wrong people often drags the meeting down, makes it difficult to facilitate, and make decisions. I do not invite people to my meetings or ask them not to attend if they: Are curious to hear what is going on Can’t exp...

In this episode of the podcast my friend Charlie and I talk about the frustration of status meetings. Do you like status meetings? The post 6: Status Meeting Morass appeared first on John Poelstra.

A wise person I work with made this profound statement today. You can release on time and still fail There’s a notion out there that project managers only care about making the schedule. While it’s easy to get fixated on it, the more I work on product releases the less I find myself caring about “the schedule.” This doesn’t mean it’s not important to meet the dates we’ve committed to. If a release is off track, I’m more interested in constructing a realistic schedule everyone has confidence m...

Not too long ago I was in a situation with a very limited amount of time and energy and had to make sure I used every minute and ounce of energy on the right things. Prioritization with Post-it notes and a Sharpie was the solution! Credits Pulse Rock by Kevin MacLeod Sax, Rock, and Roll by Kevin MacLeod All songs licensed under Creative Commons The post 4: Ruthless Prioritization appeared first on John Poelstra.

This episode is a conversation with my friend Charlie about how meetings drain our energy and what we can do to minimize it. Credits Pulse Rock by Kevin MacLeod Sax, Rock, and Roll by Kevin MacLeod All songs licensed under Creative Commons The post 3: Avoiding Energy Drain from Meetings appeared first on John Poelstra.

Here are my thoughts and experiences on how to deal with worries (without solutions) introduced at software project meetings. Credits Pulse Rock by Kevin MacLeod Sax, Rock, and Roll by Kevin MacLeod All songs licensed under Creative Commons The post 2: Dealing with Worry at Software Project Meetings appeared first on John Poelstra.

This kicks off the first episode of the John Poelstra Show. I talk about my goals and motivations for doing this new podcast and what I hope comes of it. Links mentioned in this episode: Fizzle.co Jocko Podcast Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin Credits Pulse Rock by Kevin MacLeod Sax, Rock, and Roll by Kevin MacLeod All songs licensed under Creative Commons The post 1: Introducing The John Poelstra Show appeared first on John Poelstra.