Have you ever heard of strengthsfinder.com? It has nothing to do with the image on the left. I searched for Ideation and don’t you think this one is pretty crazy?
Anyway, some time ago at the place I worked we all read the first 2 books. The second we’d refer to as now-disco. Almost like one word. I’ve always thought of them as, “First, Break Now, Disco”. One guy added “stabby” to his strengths.
I took the test again and this time, my top strengths are: Ideation, Intellection, Maximizer, Learner and Input. A colleague suggested to create a mnemonic and “I’d tell Max, learn to putt.”, is what I made. If you’ve taken the test, what are your strengths? What acronym or other phrase could you craft them in to?
The Scrum Alliance is accepting new applicants to become Certified Scrum Trainers (CST) and I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring. If you would like to know why I am applying, please feel free to read my letter of intent.
Tobias Mayer has a post on the new CST application process, including a link to the full process description.
The saying, “you drank the Kool-Aid” may be a derisive way to say someone has been indoctrinated. Similar to a Borg-related “you will be assimilated“. Admitting to drinking the Kool-Aid seems synonymous with “going native“. I think it’s worse than that. It’s forever linked to the Guyana Tragedy for me and is tantamount to committing suicide.
The concept of dogfooding I understand and I am a fan. Both of the verbification of nouns and of using your own product. Just not of the words. Similar to not wanting to be a pig, I do not want to be a pig noshing on some dog food. Although pigs are smarter than chickens. Pigs must not have that sophisticated of a palette, I guess. I wouldn’t want to work in a dog food factory that practiced this, either.
I am a fan of brew making and like to go wine tasting at smaller places. It helps me understand the craft so that I may try to practice it myself. Understanding all the ingredients, the process and the taste sought after. I think the phrase is gaining some popularity and I am now blatantly advocating for its use. Let’s drink our own champagne!
I am a member of a community of thinkers.
I believe that communities exist as homes for professionals to learn, teach, and reflect on their work.
I challenge each community in the software industry to:
* reflect and honor the practitioners who make its existence possible;
* provide an excellent experience for its members;
* support the excellent experience its members provide for their clients and colleagues in all aspects of their professional interactions;
* exemplify, as a body, the professional and humane behavior of its members;
* engage and collaborate within and across communities through respectful exploration of diverse and divergent insights;
* embrace newcomers to the community openly and to celebrate ongoing journeys; and
* thrive on the sustained health of the community and its members through continual reflection and improvement.
I believe that leaders builders in each community have a responsibility to exhibit these behaviors, and that people who exhibit these behaviors will become leaders the community’s builders.
I am a member of a community of thinkers. If I should happen to be a catalyst more than others, I consider that a tribute to those who have inspired me.
”A community of thinkers” by Liz Keogh, Eric Willeke and Jean Tabaka is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
So that we can easily find ways to constantly improve while collaborating effectively and sustainably, I like kanban as a tool which shows what constrains transforming concepts into cash. I believe it allows us to see the whole system and our part in what to do to help in the transformation of the system into a better one and our ideas in to innovation. It seems to me there would be greater benefits for all involved.
For software a kanban tool must be highly visible, with a policy to strictly limit work in progress and a policy to only accept work when there’s capacity. To be effective, it requires consensus on these policies from the people involved.
Kanban is a Lean way of saying, “I trust and respect you”.
The last time traveling highlighted for me examples of managing by delegation. One example was with checking in, and the other was in getting another copy of my room key. In both examples I was led to believe that my requests would lead to action and instead, both examples led to disruption and stress for those involved.
Walking in to the hotel lobby I observed a line with about 3 people waiting. There were 4 people behind the desk working fastidiously. It seemed I wouldn’t have to wait long. The Manager on Duty (MOD) was greeting people in front of the desk and asking what he could do for them. I was in a very relaxed, patient mood and the MOD’s frenetic I NEED TO HELP YOU!!! attitude as he greeted arrivals was distracting. I tried to avoid him as I took my place in the line, bags at my feet. Alas, the desk people were slow enough that he reached me before I reached them.
Giving me a WELCOME and a hand shake and nervous laughter he demanded to know how he could be of help. I said, “Well, you could check me in.” and he said, “I cannot do that for you, is there anything else you need?” and I muttered, “I just want to check in…”. When traveling by plane I try to enter a near-meditative, relaxed state to help with how long the day will be. Even on short flights, I find the door-to-door commute usually takes no less than 6 hours and typically takes 8 or 9 before I truly reach my destination.
The manager’s attitude and behavior was definitely starting to wind me up. He actually interrupted one of the check in people and told her that I needed to check in and to get to me as soon as possible. So now we were all flummoxed and she was stressed even more and rushing and the atmosphere in the lobby went from relaxing to… PANIC! We need to get people checked in! AAAAUUUGH!!! DO YOUR JOB! His meddling just made everyone tense and actually elongated the process.
A couple nights later I had left my room without the key. I was at the very far end of the building, about 2 city blocks away from the front. So I began the excursion to the front desk. I stopped and resupplied at the vending machine and continued on my way. I finally got to the desk and there was one person behind the desk helping someone and one person waiting for help. A different MOD came up and asked if he could help with anything. I said, “Apparently not.”.
“What does that mean?”, he asked fairly enough.
Thinking of my last experience with the MOD I said, “I guess managers here are only allowed to tell others what to do, but not actually do anything themselves.”.
He expressed a bit of outrage and insisted, “I take that as a challenge and promise to help you. What can I do for you?”.
Standing in gym clothes, pocket-less and nearly late for my workout class I asked, “Can you get me a key? I’ve locked myself out”.
His reaction did not surprise me. “Oh, I can’t do that, but this young woman will be glad to help.” turning to her and interrupting her service of another customer, “this gentleman needs a key, can you get one to him as soon as possible?”.
She looked at me and we rolled our eyes at each other. It was the same person who checked me in and and I muttered, “How empowering! Please, take your time.”, being a little self-conscious of looking arrogant to the customer being helped, and to the staff. She was helpful and I got my key in enough time to make my class.
These situations remind me so much of how traditional managers behave, and how upsetting it can be for everyone involved. Do both these people have the same management style and personality? Were they trained the same? Is it a point of privilege not to do anything as a manger? Is it the people, or the system?
I would love to know your thoughts. If you have some answers or questions of your own, I invite you to leave a comment.
Agile infiltrates an increasing amount of organizations. Changes in the jargon detect its influence. Phrases and words like “inspect and adapt”, “vertical slice”, “velocity”, and “collaborate” start getting batted around like volleyballs at a beach party. People ask questions in the serious tone of a late-night host discovering what is interesting about the guest: “What is the highest ranked item?”, “What are the acceptance criteria?”, “What does the team think?”. Zealots mutter incomprehensible phrases like “maximize the work not done” and “tracking actual hours worked is unnecessary”. People insist it takes a shift in mindset to understand, and yet we don’t sign up for loosing ours in the bargain. How should this be dealt with? Where to start?
Some current activities must be worthwhile. Utilizing these new Agile tools for working, the team can gain consensus on what those things are. It’s not that what we’re doing is under investigation like a new federal appointee. How can the team carry on the best of the organization while remaining willing to change that which does not work and moving on?
With the basics understood, one way may be through reflecting on what works right now. Retrospect and close out the old while opening up to the new. This may be intensive, as the scope of the session could be broad and wide.
What works well for the team? These are the team’s working agreements. What works in the process? Map out how ideas turn in to revenue with a value stream.
The best way to capture the information is with high visibility. Hung on the wall and written to be read across a room. While analyzing the information the team also looks for immediate improvements and prepares the way to embrace the new Agile culture.
Using a retrospective approach in this way helps the team build consensus through collaboration. Keep an active meeting objective visible, as well as an area to park off-topic suggestions and ideas. With the iterative approach of Agile the team can also safely begin transitioning away from traditional behaviors and courageously embracing this modern approach to software development.
Lately I’ve been reading about people lamenting unsuccessful adoptions of Scrum within organizations. Somehow, these entities survived before Scrum was introduced. They are not just going to fold because they have not done it right. They may choose to ignore some of the principles of Agile and continue to bring in revenue without coming all the way around.
So the Agile community has some advice. Make sure good technical practices are in place. Have motivated and skilled people in the trenches with the will to change. Make sure there is executive support. Use some assessment tool. There are other suggestions, these just come to mind immediately.
If the right ingredients are not present, people are encouraged to leave the organization, or the organization to get rid of the misfits. Coaches are encouraged not to engage with dysfunctional organizations, or to fire the client when they discover that the resistance is too great.
This leaves me feeling uncomfortable. What about those left behind in the wreckage of an implementation gone awry? Fear, stress and lies are still the modes of operation. There is no hiding from the authorities. The overhead of the process is overwhelming. People are worse off, thanks to the mangled introduction of Scrum. For many reasons including personal and macro-economical, people cannot just leave the situation.
What should be done to help them?
Aaron: How did winning the award help your efforts with Agile?
Kenji: Being honest, actually nobody in Japan knows that award. Some Japanese colleagues really congratulated me about winning and that made me cry. But, no other business effect.
Aaron: Why was it emotional for you?
Kenji: I have been long trying to introduce Agile to Japan, to change engineers’ lives for the better. That effort was acknowledged outside Japan. My colleagues and friends also helped me with the effort together.
Aaron: So winning the award was a collaborative effort?
Kenji: Yes. Along the way of introducing Agile to Japan, they came and formed a good community. Do you know that my speech of Gordon Pask Award is on YouTube? The last part I spoke in Japanese was acknowledgment to the community.
Aaron: Excellent! What would you say is the best way the lives of engineers changed with Agile? Is it the community? Something else?
Kenji: To me engineers themselves changed after Agile. They now know they can change, in other words. They know now that they no longer have to be just sheep. Agile is an anti-bureaucrat, anti-formalism, anti-establishment… I don’t know the right word. Something that says “no!” to the old way of thinking, and that often makes conflicts in organizations the engineer belongs to. I was lucky to have had a good boss.
Aaron: That always helps, to have the support. In your speech, you say it almost got you fired. Why was that?
Kenji: Many of us (Japanese engineers in the community) experienced conflict. So what I wanted to say was in the speech, as to “get fired”, was that we have experienced a long and unhappy, not-well-treated era up to that day.
Aaron: Different direction. How have you been applying mind mapping lately?
Kenji: 1) When I explore new features in the product. I do this a lot before writing user stories. 2) When we have a meeting to get a whole picture of the agenda together via projector, and 3) when I organize an article what to say in it.
Aaron: What else are you working on these days?
Kenji: Giving talks on how to make a good “informative workspace”, how to be a good facilitator. I have been giving that talk (“Project Facilitation: tools that improve productivity and motivation of collaborative work at Gemba” is the title) for 5 years, over 100 times!
Aaron: I bet you hardly need notes!
Kenji: I can automatically talk. I’ve been invited to give that talk to PM, QA, management, leadership and other communities, too.
Aaron: What do you like best about that talk?
Kenji: It includes a lot of pictures and it says “you can change” and you can help others. I think it has been invited to a lot of conferences because I hid Agile behind the talk.
Aaron: How do you mean that? I would guess that it means you introduce ideas about Agile in the talk? But don’t mention it ‘out loud’ or advertise it before the talk?
Kenji: The ideas are from Agile, TPS, and Facilitation. Mostly Agile. I don’t say Agile out loud on purpose.
Aaron: What kind of ideas come from Agile that help facilitation? Is it about letting people know they have the power to change their own situation?
Kenji: Agile is anti-establishment, so not many managers like it at the first look.
Aaron: So you cannot say the word or they will not let you talk (or not listen), right?
Kenji: Yes. Visualization using the wall, including Kanban, task board, burndown-charts with synchronization technique (stand-up) and self-process improvement (retrospectives) and a lot more.
Aaron: Since we all have to work with our managers, how do you include them in feeling comfortable with these ideas?
Kenji: I show them an example of a team in two separate places communicating with Kanban (or task board), but not much. Japanese managers, actually like Deming, PDCA, and Quality things a lot. So, when I say “Agile is PDCA”, they suddenly understand and start to like it. There still is a culture of QC circle.
Aaron: PDCA seems a lot like inspect and adapt, doesn’t it? Perhaps more formal?
Kenji: Yes that’s it.
Aaron: Does the QC circle help with continuous improvement and change for good?
Kenji: Yes, but old QC circles are getting “just-do-it”. or what to say, formal non practical and younger engineers don’t like them.
Aaron: Too rigid?
Kenji: No, ineffective. Empty. They do it because they are told to do so. No soul or motivation in them. A “let’s get this over with” kind of event. So QC circles remains its “shape” but not working effectively these days. And managers who saw my slides (not knowing it is about Agile) recognize it as a new articulation of self-improving process. And managers and engineers start to talk. They haven’t talked with each other… talk about not Agile, but improving Gemba. And that is fine for me. It doesn’t matter how it is called… Agile, TPS, or QC. What matters is the fact that they started talking to one another and changing their way to improve their engineering life.
Aaron: Why do you think that is? I mean, that something as simple as the “information workspace” helps this?
Kenji: Not only that, I should add retro, standup meeting. I talk about how you can do the job together and how you can improve the job at the same time.
Aaron: I see… Are you still using niko-niko? I find the concept fascinating and wonder how the information may be used.
Kenji: Yes. It is used to exchange conversation. I’m not sure you can understand. Japanese engineers don’t talk so much. I mean, culturally, they don’t talk about themselves a lot.
Aaron: So it is like indirect conversation about how they feel?
Kenji: Yes, indirect conversation, AND it is a good trigger to start talking. Culture of shame. As Ruth Benedict called it in “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword”.
Aaron: So they are embarrassed, or find it … rude?
Kenji: Yes, embarrassed. Or uncomfortable to start talking loudly about themselves.
Aaron: So it is a nice tool to help them overcome that shyness…
Kenji: Yes that is one and the other is, for the manager to notice like “everyone seems like they’re happy but there is one who is unhappy for the whole week. I should talk with him in person”.
Aaron: An invitation to a conversation, almost like a story card!
Kenji: Yes. you can say that.
Aaron: We’re about out of time, is there anything else you would like to mention?
Kenji: I’d like to say that the Gordon Pask Award helped us (Japanese community) start a phase II Agile movement in Japan. As a concrete result, we successfully held “Agile Japan, 2009”, the first Agile Alliance sponsored conference in Tokyo, on April 22nd, 2009 with over 200 attendees.
In that conference, we prepared “Pair discount” pricing and strongly recommended the attendees to come with their boss or clients. The result was 75% of them came in pairs! I believe it is a sign that engineers, managers, and clients have started talking to one another to make this software development world better with Agile (or whatever they call it.) I think this is the greatest effect of my winning the Gordon Pask Award.
Thank you very much.
Aaron: Thank you so much, Kenji.
Constant Change by Aaron Sanders is licensed under a