November 09, 2007
Joke: Consulting or...
(mature readers only) http://www.lotsofjokes.com/cat_332.htm
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at 11:08 AM | |
January 23, 2007
The Agile Zealot's Handbook
This is great! I often call myself an Agile Zealot to my clients. (Usually, they smile... and if they don't I tend to have a short relationship with them!) So here it is, the Agile Zealot's Handbook.
And, since I've got a dead horse lying around waiting to be beaten up some more, I've re-written it (the Agile Zealot's Handbook, not the dead horse) to be non-software oriented. Presenting... the new and improved... non-software oriented... readable by anyone... Agile Zealot's Creed:
VALUE
IF you don't repeatedly deliver results
that produce actual value
for a real customer
into your real world environment
frequently enough to respond to change...
TECHNIQUE
IF you're not paying constant attention to technical excellence
with simple, effective tools, processes and reuse
driven by uncompromising dedication to quality
and the discipline to test everything...
LEARN
IF you're not deliberately going
through stages of planning, acting
reflecting and learning
as frequently as you are delivering results
over and over and over...
TEAM
IF your team is not empowered to self-organise,
does not sit together and engage in face-to-face communication,
does not include your customer
and all the necessary skills to make its own decisions and take immediate action...
THEN YOU HAVE COMPROMISED YOUR AGILITY
(and good luck to you... you'll need it!)
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at 08:41 PM | |
December 05, 2006
Dysfunctional Scrum Video
This is painful to watch... but all of these things happen. Presenting: the dysfunctional daily scrum video. Here are some related links:
Daily Status Meeting Dysfunction
Is There a Single "Most Important" Agile Work Practice?
More on Daily Status for Self-Organizing Teams
Privacy for Self-Organizing Teams
Good Intro to the 3 Questions in the Daily Team Status Meeting
Facilitation Skills Handbook [pdf]
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at 09:47 PM | |
September 08, 2006
Communication Comic
Many of you have probably already see this, but it's a good Friday post: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=134931180&size=o. Courtesy of Scott Adams.
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at 09:27 AM | |
March 03, 2006
Choice Quotes from Systemantics - Funny, But Scary Too
Some Theory:
The Fundamental Theorem: NEW SYSTEMS MEAN NEW PROBLEMS p. 14
The Big-Bang Theorem of Systems Cosmology: SYSTEMS TEND TO EXPAND TO FILL THE KNOWN UNIVERSE p. 18
There is a world of difference, psychologically speaking, between the passive observation that Things Don't Work Out Very Well and the active, penetrating insight that COMPLEX SYSTEMS EXHIBIT UNEXPECTED BEHAVIOR p. 22
Hmm... that sounds like some organizations I've worked in.
SYSTEMS TEND TO MALFUNCTION CONSPICUOUSLY JUST AFTER THEIR GREATEST TRIUMPH p. 35
A TEMPORARY PATCH WILL VERY LIKELY BE PERMANENT p. 36
WHEN A FAIL-SAFE SYSTEM FAILS, IT FAILS BY FAILING TO FAIL SAFE. p. 80
An Example:
COLOSSAL ERRORS TEND TO ESCAPE NOTICE... Thus, the loss of 50,000 American lives per year in auto accidents is seen, not as a mortal flaw in our Transportation System, but merely as a fact of life.
p. 91
Related to Agile:
But how does it come about, step by step, that some complex Systems actually function? This question, to which we as students of General Systemantics attach the highest importance, has not yet yielded to intensive modern methods of investigation and analysis. As of this writing, only a limited and partial breakthrough can be reported, as follows: A COMPLEX SYSTEM THAT WORKS IS INVARIABLY FOUND TO HAVE EVOLVED FROM A SIMPLE SYSTEM THAT WORKEDThe parallel proposition also appears to be true:
A COMPLEX SYSTEM DESIGNED FROM SCRATCH NEVER WORKS AND CANNOT BE MADE TO WORK. YOU HAVE TO START OVER, BEGINNING WITH A WORKING SIMPLE SYSTEM.
p. 65
THE MESSAGE SENT IS NOT NECESSARILY THE MESSAGE RECEIVED p. 102
IF SOMETHING ISN'T WORKING, DON'T KEEP DOING IT. dO SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD. p. 125
ESCALATING THE WRONG SOLUTION DOES NOT IMPROVE THE OUTCOME p. 169
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at 06:40 AM | |
September 29, 2005
Transformative Learning and Agile
It seems to me that most people who have had any kind of success on serious projects, or in life, can probably point to a profound collaborative experience at the core of that experience. In my last posting, "tools vs. capabilities" I said that because Agile is fundamentally a process of collaboration and our culture is fundamentally is a culture of contest, we need to recognize that learning Agile requires a transformation at the level of character more than methodology. Despite the fact that we may have had profound experiences with collaboration, because we are also deeply influenced by our environment, there are limits to what we can understand about it. We need not look further than the agile disciplines to see how most of our working and social practices are not supportive of Agile perspectives. For example empowering the team and the concept of self-organizing team is a direct challenge to most of our social, economic, cultural, community and familial structures which are essentially hierarchical. The discipline of amplifying learning is a direct challenge to the practice of excessive specialization which manifests itself in the form of expert elitism. How can any one of us ever hope to have a culture of learning and innovation if we come from a culture of expertise and hierarchy based on that expertise?
This is where transformative learning comes in. Agile requires of us not just an ordinary, but transformative learning experience. When we learn, we take something new and fit it into an old category or assign an old meaning to it. Categories are ways in which we organize our learning, they can also be called frames of reference. If we encounter an experience for which we have no category it is hard to understand it. For example have you ever been in a conversation or taken part in a course where what you were learning was so foreign to you that you didn't even know what kinds of questions to ask to help you understand it?
Our frames of reference are shaped through the influence of our culture, language, and experiences, which all interact to set boundaries to future learning. This is because outside of these categories it is impossible for us even to register something new, let alone seek out its reality in an unprejudiced manner.
How often do you find yourself in a new learning situation where you feel overwhelmed, frustrated or even angry? It is possible that at those times you may be at the threshold of a transformative learning experience. You can have two reactions: one would be to dig deep and try to figure out why you are disturbed and see what insights you are led to and the other would be to just give up on the idea and find arguments against it.
Another way to recognize a potential opportunity for tranformative learning is to reflect on the following question: have you ever had an experience where you were faced with some new learning and because you have had a similar experience or because for some reason you see yourself as an expert in that field you have not been able to derive the proper learning from that experience? You may have realized this at a later time after numerous interactions with a similar experience where you slowly started to recognize gaps in your own understanding.
In order to derive the full benefit of a new experience that doesn't fit into the realm of our experience we must have a transformative learning experience. A transformative learning experience is an experience that requires of us to examine the values and limitations of our old categories and assign new meanings to them. This does not mean that all of our previous learning is invalid. A transformative learning experience allows us to expand our frames of reference to allow for more complexity and at times possibly to integrate two previously perceived dichotomous approaches.
For a detailed introduction to transformative learning theories, its thinkers and history check out this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_learning on Wikipedia.
Posted by Shabnam Tashakour at 10:50 PM | |
July 28, 2005
Applicability Matrix Tool for Colocated Team
Notes:
1. Individuals are automatically co-located with themselves.
2. Teams can greatly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their communication by working in a shared space. For rote and adaptive work, sharing a space is highly recommended, but not always essential. Some teams have found mechanisms for working effectively in a distributed fashion. In these circumstances a great deal of effort is put into frequent use of rich communication channels. In purely creative and innovative work, it is very difficult to do the work without co-location. Risks of misunderstandings or waste due to handoffs increase a great deal if co-location is not used in these circumstances.
3. In community work, co-location is difficult in general due to the large numbers of people involved. A “command centre” open to all members of the community is usually as close as it is possible to come to co-location. With rote work, it is not necessary to even attempt co-location. Adaptive and creative work benefit greatly by increased communication so some efforts to co-locate may be worth the effort, but care should be taken in determining the return on investment.
Posted by Mishkin Berteig at 11:46 PM | |