Agile Fashion

1. I’m an only child. Some people ask if I feel like I missed out. I don’t know what they mean.
2. I shake the hand of any people who tell me they are a native of Colorado as well.
3. Consuming adult beverages is enjoyable, and I have a low tolerance so it’s easy for me to get a light buzz. Dangerous for me to consume in quantity and so I merely sip.
4. The pinnacle of existence for me is enjoying a day of deep, untracked powder.
5. I don’t like ‘stuff’ and tend to give away or get rid of many things.
6. Some people think I am quiet and reserved. I wonder how they got that impression.
7. Experiences delight me and I seek out new ones all the time.
8. I like to turn a light on before turning the previous light off as I walk through the house. Sometimes it means I walk in serial laps.
9. Actually, I prefer to leave the lights off and let my eyes and other senses adjust.
10. I called a meeting with my principal to explain why I should move from 4th to 6th grade, she let me. It just seemed to me like 12+ years in formal education a lot of my life. More than I had lived at the time.
11. My first crush was on Kristy McNichol in ‘Family’ and established my penchant to fall for the tom-boy.
12. My second crush was on Blondie and established my penchant to fall for wild women.
13. Around this time I insisted people call me Tim. Nobody did.
14. I had surgery on my left foot due to a 1 in a million condition. If it had failed, I would hardly be able to walk now. Instead, it just merely hurts.
15. I went to Spain to visit a friend, and lost my appendix. Good thing I had my bi-lingual friend who grew up in the area to help me.
16. There are 7-year-olds who have more drawing talent than me. Do not choose me for Pictionary.
17. Having change in my pocket drives me crazy.
18. I’ve never worn a watch.
19. People compliment me on my touching eulogies. It’s melancholic to be a good speaker for the dead.
20. I’m myopically prescient. What I see, happens about 3 seconds later.
21. Sometimes I become aware that I am dreaming and even more rarely I can start actively creating it.
22. Alaska is the only state I’ve not seen, and I’ve never been to Mexico.
23. I am not, and never have been, a note taker.
24. Working for a paycheck always seemed to get in the way of life. What I am doing now and the compensation fits my lifestyle much better.
25. My wit may be esoteric and therefore I appear to be just strange to some.

If you track them electronically, some of the process changes, as many APLM tools allow for issue tracking. Hopefully, the intent and result still make sense.

Blocker Board
Always preferring high-touch and visible information radiators to track items, I tend to make a physical blocker board for teams I work with. Why do I call it a “Blocker Board”? It alliterates. I am finding it to be a problem to call it this. Perhaps I should change it to an “Obstacle Catcher”, or something that doesn’t make people think the sky is falling, just that we’re hunting for the system constraint.

Reviewing obstacles
Hopefully the obstacles are being removed quickly, and reviewing all obstacles identified during stand up lets the team verify the ones which have been removed. Having the requestor on the card lets that person verify the obstacle is gone. For the new one’s added, adding the day’s date, lets the team understand how long it took to remove, when verifying with the requestor. This review also gives a moment for people to think if they know (or want to admit to) another obstacle in the team’s way.

Obstacles are non-debatable
Having a working agreement that nobody can debate when someone states the fact they know of an obstacle helps ensure people feel comfortable bringing things up. If it is pushed off as, “not really an obstacle” or, “not an obstacle yet” can be very deflating to someone and cause them to resent mentioning it. Even if the requestor does convince others and writes it up, they may feel apprehensive that it will truly be removed.

Obstacles must be removed immediately
Having another working agreement that everyone should endeavor to get obstacles out of the way immediately, helps the morale of the team. Obviously, this allows the team to be as productive as possible. Removing obstacles immediately builds trust within the team and with management, increasing the camaraderie and expanding the notion of who is on the team. Immediate removal motivates the team, increasing respect by dealing with issues brought forth, without questions asked.

Avoid assigning owners and due-dates
Some obstacles take some time to be removed, even when endeavoring to have them gone by the next day. Assigning owners and due dates is a threatening stance. This is doubly true if obstacles are shot down as really existing when initially mentioned. Assigning one owner, especially at stand up in front of the team, implicit blame is laid on this person for having a problem. The date can only be a guess, and is now given under duress, if it is also in front of everyone. Date assignment allows the person to procrastinate on it, or use it as political leverage. It is stating that the team is fine allowing an obstacle to exist, and slow down the system. For political leverage, it is saying that I will not remove this obstacle, until you do something on my behalf. With the date being a guess, what happens when it comes up and the obstacle is still around? How much are you allowing someone to “game the system”? Assigning owner and due-date erode the sense of team and of collaboration. Avoid this, no matter how much you may feel it is the right thing to do.

If all else fails, prioritize obstacles
When the rate of obstacle removal is less than the rate of obstacle identification, there is yet another obstacle in the way. It might be incredibly difficult to find. In the mean time, prioritizing the ones that are identified helps find the greatest one for the most people. This may be close to, or a symptom of, the system constraint.

Finding the system constraint
Somewhere in the system, there is a very large obstacle, causing a bottleneck that could potentially be jeopardizing success, destroying morale and causing most of the stress. This is the team’s most significant impediment. This constricted area is the system constraint, and is where work passes through at the slowest rate. Having the practice in place of including the date added shows which ones have been around the longest, pointing the way. Agreeing to remove them immediately adds to the significance of obstacles that won’t go away. Prioritizing obstacles will also help identify symptoms of this constraint, and maybe even the constraint itself. Adding the requestor allows the organization to recognize the person who found this constraint, and reward them along with those who removed it, for helping to bring the team to a greater level of performance.

Removing the system constraint
Theory of Constraints explains it thus:

1. Find the system constraint
2. Elevate it (highest priority)
3. Subordinate everything else (nothing is more important)
4. Exploit the constraint (get rid of it for now and forever)
5. See step 1

Eventually, the largest obstacle which cannot be removed is found. Keeping this part of the system on a regular cadence and knowing it cannot go faster, makes it the heartbeat of the organization.

Accelerating with gravity, the resistance of loose powdery snow raising large plumes behind me as I choose the direction down the contours of a mountain makes me feel incredibly powerful. This feeling comes from the balance of known skills against unknown terrain, converting potential to kinetic energy while teetering on the edge of chaos but remaining in control.

There is an aspect of control to it, but when someone states “that is a powerful person”, typically a different image of what powerful means comes to mind. It made me wonder, who is considered powerful? Where do they draw that power from? It seems so subjective with some negative connotations that I decided to look at power itself, and where it comes from.

The first result returned from this inquiry in Google was interesting enough for a full read. The title WHERE DOES POWER COME FROM? matched the inquiry nearly exactly, except mine was asked a little more quietly as I always feel yelled at with all caps. A fairly simple answer appears on page 3 out of 14.

“Power comes from Purpose”.

The concepts presented are complex to me, so I continue to re-read portions and other related material. This article was my introduction to the intriguing Appreciation-Influence-Control (AIC Model). Appreciation, Influence and Control are the terms used to describe the three universal power relationships found in any system.

• Appreciate through listening. Appreciation describes the kind of power most characteristic of our relationship to the “whole” system.
• Influence through dialogue. Influence describes our relationship to parts of the whole system which we do not control.
• Control through action. Control describes the relationship of the individual part of the system to itself.

I also like this clarification of the process from Appreciation-Influence-Control (A-I-C) a self-organizing process, which calls back to power as purpose and could easily be implemented in a workshop.

AIC is an organizing process which consists of:
a) identifying the purpose to be served;
b) framing the power-field around that purpose — those who have control, influence and appreciation relative to the purpose;
c) selecting those with the most influence relative to the purpose (stakeholders) from the three circles and designing a process of interaction between them; and
d) facilitating a self-organizing process which ensures that the stakeholders:
d1) step back from the current problems to fully appreciate the realities and possibilities inherent in the whole situation;
d2) examine the logical and strategic options as well as the subjective feelings and values involved in selecting strategies; and
d3) allow for free and informed choice of action by those responsible for implementing decisions.

The AIC process reminds me of the RAPID framework I recently learned about through a course I took while employed at Yahoo!. What I really like about AIC is it explicitly calls out to the benefit of self-organization.

According to the AIC philosophy, a powerful system unifies people around a purpose. It balances the potential energy of intent against these kinetic energy power types of appreciation, influence and control. Control is at the individual level in action, influence is achieved over others with dialogue, and through listening we can gain an appreciation of the whole.

New questions arise for me. What determines the scope of appreciation, influence and control within a system? How does someone increase this within an organization?

What are your answers? Do you have other questions?