"All things in this vast universe exist in you, with you, and for you." Kahlil Gibran
Monday, November 14, 2016
Let there be spaces in your togetherness ....
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls." - Kahlil Gibran
Once you realize that the road is the goal ....
“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.” - Nisargadatta Maharaj
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Audiobook Review: Scrum - The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time (Unabridged) by Jeff Sutherland (2014)
I have completed listening to Scrum - The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time (Unabridged) by Jeff Sutherland (2014). It is a provocative read and challenges and attacks much of the workplace and project activity that I have experienced and observed. The Scrum "movement" is growing. Scrum is a culture requiring 100% commitment! Scrum faces opposition from territorialism, information hording, lack of transparency, protection of individual power and hierarchy.
Too much time and cost goes into creating and updating beautiful GANTT charts and writing lengthy documents which do not provide good value in terms of improving project success. According to Sutherland - Gartner, Forrester and Standish feel likewise. One team should get the job done from soup to nuts. No hand-offs. The team needs diversity of skill-set, thinking and experience. Team members need to identify with the product/project not their individual specialty. Small teams get work done much faster and better than big teams. Huddle-up for 15-minute daily stand-up meetings. What did you do yesterday to help the team finish the sprint? What will you do today to help the team finish the sprint? What obstacles will get in the way? Only one-sixth of the work done actually produces something of value. Do One Thing at A Time - The greatest waste occurs through multi-tasking. Doing more than one thing at a time makes you slower and worse at both tasks. Studies show conclusively that the people who multi-task the most have the most over-inflated opinion of their ability compared to their actual performance. Half done is not done. Value only exists when something is completely done and useable. Do it right the first time. When you make a mistake stop and fix it right away. Waiting to fix it later can take 20 times more effort. Working Too Hard Only Makes More Work - Work too many hours and you start making bad decisions and mistakes. Peak performance occurs at about 40 hours. Working longer results in less accomplished overall and poorer quality. No heroics. Heroic effort should be viewed as a failure of planning. Don’t fall in love with your plan. The map is not the terrain. Don’t project too far out. Don’t estimate tasks in hours. Estimate tasks relative to each other in terms of effort and prioritize in terms of value. Learn your velocity through the experience of sprints. Once you know how fast you are going you will know when you can be done. The product owner decides the order of work. She must understand the product from the customer point of view. The scrum team’s technical expertise will inform the product owner as to what can be built. As product owner, move outside of yourself to see the whole picture. The product owner must be available to the team and the customer. The product owner is a leader and not a boss. True joy is experienced when you are striving toward a goal. Studies show that happiness leads to success in nearly every domain of our lives not the reverse. It’s the journey not the destination, the process not the result. Reward striving. Scrum accelerates the product of human effort. Scrum has proven to be effective in software development, in business, the classroom, in government and in the non-profit sector. I'm sold on the benefits of Scrum.
Too much time and cost goes into creating and updating beautiful GANTT charts and writing lengthy documents which do not provide good value in terms of improving project success. According to Sutherland - Gartner, Forrester and Standish feel likewise. One team should get the job done from soup to nuts. No hand-offs. The team needs diversity of skill-set, thinking and experience. Team members need to identify with the product/project not their individual specialty. Small teams get work done much faster and better than big teams. Huddle-up for 15-minute daily stand-up meetings. What did you do yesterday to help the team finish the sprint? What will you do today to help the team finish the sprint? What obstacles will get in the way? Only one-sixth of the work done actually produces something of value. Do One Thing at A Time - The greatest waste occurs through multi-tasking. Doing more than one thing at a time makes you slower and worse at both tasks. Studies show conclusively that the people who multi-task the most have the most over-inflated opinion of their ability compared to their actual performance. Half done is not done. Value only exists when something is completely done and useable. Do it right the first time. When you make a mistake stop and fix it right away. Waiting to fix it later can take 20 times more effort. Working Too Hard Only Makes More Work - Work too many hours and you start making bad decisions and mistakes. Peak performance occurs at about 40 hours. Working longer results in less accomplished overall and poorer quality. No heroics. Heroic effort should be viewed as a failure of planning. Don’t fall in love with your plan. The map is not the terrain. Don’t project too far out. Don’t estimate tasks in hours. Estimate tasks relative to each other in terms of effort and prioritize in terms of value. Learn your velocity through the experience of sprints. Once you know how fast you are going you will know when you can be done. The product owner decides the order of work. She must understand the product from the customer point of view. The scrum team’s technical expertise will inform the product owner as to what can be built. As product owner, move outside of yourself to see the whole picture. The product owner must be available to the team and the customer. The product owner is a leader and not a boss. True joy is experienced when you are striving toward a goal. Studies show that happiness leads to success in nearly every domain of our lives not the reverse. It’s the journey not the destination, the process not the result. Reward striving. Scrum accelerates the product of human effort. Scrum has proven to be effective in software development, in business, the classroom, in government and in the non-profit sector. I'm sold on the benefits of Scrum.
Friday, January 8, 2016
Audiobook Review: The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership
I have completed listening to The Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadership by Richard Branson (2014). It is entertaining and rich with leadership and quality customer service lessons. Don't micromanage. PowerPoint culture is boring, ineffective and completely out of hand. Strive to be excellent and atypical. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Get out and kick the tires. Look at your business from the perspective of customers and competitors. Everything can always be improved on. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. The harder I practice the luckier I get. One size will never fit all. Hiring the right people is a skill and the most important part of my job. The concept of being over-qualified is nonsensical. It all comes down to attitude and desire. Hire for attitude and train for skill. Provide excellent and plentiful customer service by real people. Profit is a bi-product of good customer-service. If you don't have passion for what you're doing you shouldn't be in a leadership role. Fun is infectious and good for business. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Nurture your people or someone else will soon be stealing your lunch. In Part IV: New Skills for a New World, Branson champions entrepreneurship and states that it should be nurtured at a young age. He charges the education system with being myopic and detrimental to maximizing one's full potential. Teachers teach what they know and it isn't entrepreneurship. Government and companies should encourage and support entrepreneurship. (I am taken back to my 16 year career with the YMCA, championing entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship.) Very successful people often had the help of a mentor. Lead from the front. Collaboration is essential to success. Face-to-face communication is essential for building trust. Silos are for grain. Tear down the walls. Informal collaboration is key to creativity. Branson quotes Steve Jobs: "Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings from random discussions. You run into someone. You ask what they're doing. You say WOW and soon you're cooking up all sorts of ideas!" Branson's Afterword: Follow your dreams and just do it. Make a positive difference and do some good. Believe in your ideas and be the best. Have fun and look after your team. Don't give up. Listen, take lots of notes and keep setting new challenges. Delegate and spend more time with your family. Turn off your laptop and iPhone and get your derriere out there. Communicate, collaborate and communicate some more. Do what you love and have a couch in the kitchen. The Virgin Way entertains and educates from beginning to end. 11.5 hours of listening
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