Welcome to our Seilevel Photo Op.
I was filling out an online legal form for a real estate transaction the other day and was requested to specify my gender. The only two choices offered were “male” and “female.” Since I’m a cis-gendered woman, I could check the “female” box without a qualm. But I’m still irritated. …
Nowadays we’re hearing a lot about essential workers and essential jobs. Non-essential workers are either furloughed and filing for unemployment or, like us in the tech sector, working from home with minimal inconvenience. Essential workers are expected to show up and put their lives on the line, pandemic notwithstanding. As …
I’ve worked with a large number of development teams over the past few years, all using some flavor of Agile to build backlogs and manage their work. I’ve witnessed very few teams who do this well. Considering that Agile is supposed to be a team-driven, team-focused process, failure to effectively …
Hey BA! Are you feeling befuddled, bemused, battered, or brain-dead? Never fear, Betty the BA is here. Ask her anything. Dear Betty, My team is switching to Agile, and I’m not sure what my role is going to be! Am I going to lose my job? Is there even a …
I recently taught our Visual Modeling class to a group of project managers. Coming from a software development point of view, it’s always a bit of a challenge to provide useful context and examples for folks who are engaged in different kinds of projects. The one model I’ve found that …
I have a friend who writes and consults on workplace bullying. Some of the stories she’s told me are infuriating and sadly familiar, and many of them repeat the same themes. A lot of people, mostly women, in all levels of their organizations, have had to deal with a toxic …
In a recent training event, we learned about more effective ways to talk, relate, and sell to our clients. It’s all about responding to and understanding what causes them pain. It’s about accepting that humans are emotional animals and relating to each other more effectively by allowing or encouraging emotion …
I have a story to tell about leadership. Actually, it’s about the lack of leadership, and how that percolates through an entire organization. It was my first official project management gig. I worked within the IT organization of a large company. First by chance and then by preference, I became …
On your projects, are you working directly with an enterprise architect? Do you receive documentation from an enterprise architect (EA)? Is the enterprise architect a bottleneck for your project design and estimating activities? Are you, like me, more than a little confused about the role of the enterprise architect? A …
In the “not Seilevel” part of my life, I help run a Texas grassroots political organization. I’ve been a member of the administrator group for several years. In addition to all our offline activities (meet the candidate events, volunteer events, volunteer training, get-out-the-vote activities, and charity drives) we run an …
