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.

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

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

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."

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?

It doesn't bother me, but at least once a week someone puts their name at the end of a comment and they get a reply with just the guidelines link. I thought I'd preempt those people and include some friendly context and explanation.

As you can see from my posting history I've been here for about 5-6 months. Haven't had that link pasted to me yet. Oh well, there's a first time for everything :-)

It's very dangerous to parrot rules "because they're the rules". That's how totalitarian systems are built. I'm not saying this rule is, but many rules are nonsensical, destructive and limiting. I don't suggest you go on a crusade to question every rule, but at the same time, don't become a holy crusader for rules you don't even care about. The next thing you know, you might be telling some people to stick on a yellow star so that they don't hear it from the bad guys with guns who might beat them up. (woops, Godwin's law. Discussion ended).

Interesting that someone edited my post above and removed the "Daniel" forcibly.

Daniel

Yes, you have had that link pasted to you. By me.

When you sign your posts. you waste time of people who read them. Your alleged free-thinking and anti-totalitarianism wastes others' time, for no reason. Think about that.

Because if people only know you by what you sign at the end of the your posts then it makes it very easy to impersonate you.

Daniel

I propose that we all sign our comments Daniel from now on.

I second that. Daniel's a great name, a fine combination of 6 unique, high-quality letters. I'd love to see it written more often.

Daniel

Perhaps, but I think it adds a nice personal touch

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.

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

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

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.

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

2 week plan seems smart. Forces the issue.