Selfish Programming

Hate Something, Change Something, Make Something Better

2008-08-19T21:03:00.007+01:00

Dear Reader,

This blog's moving home. I look forward to seeing you chez new and shiny Selfish Programming.

- Farewell and Hello

Happily Ever After?

2008-08-12T22:28:00.007+01:00

SimBlogging: Agile 2008 Toronto Visit

2008-08-09T05:48:00.007+01:00

'SimBlogging' offers a his and hers viewpoint where Pascal and Portia timebox-blog as a pair on the same topics simultaneously

Rough Guide to Toronto

Darwin at the Royal Ontario Museum - the story of Darwin as a curious young man seeking to better understand the world around him which has helped us to better understand ourselves
Casa Loma - a dream come true for one man whose wife was the Head of the Girl Scouts
Niagara on the Lake - where shops like Just Christmas are frequented by locals and tourists every day of the year
Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls - THE best wet ride I've been on in one of Nature's most beautiful amusement parks

Agile 2008

'Bimbo Slides' - for describing presentations that look good but have a conflicting message when the volume's turned up
'Lego Moment' - describes a moment in time when you realise a missing piece in your experience you never knew you lacked or needed to complete a task at hand

Chilling Out and Staying Cool

Chez Gino's - an impromptu home-cooked lunch in the red light district served by a charming Belgian Agile coach in Toronto
Potted Canadian history in 30 minutes - a compelling account of 400 years of Canadian history in 30 minutes on indigenous people from Allison over a tasty sushi lunch
Pairing on Mission Dress Smart - where two Agile coaches practice giving feedback to one another on the most subjective and volatile of topics
Dinner with Ben - meeting Christophe Thibault's other half (binôme) at a restaurant called the Queen Mother's

Looking into the Mirror

Strangers to ourselves - where we ask: Mirror, Mirror on the wall - if I can only change myself and everyone has value, how can I become better?
Playing with strangers - Playing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves kanban as a fun networking exercise where everyone gets to take a good look at themselves in the mirror

Les Neuf Cases aka The Nine Boxes

Running a session in French and English - Les Neuf Cases (The Nine Boxes) helped bring together participants with a common interest in learning how to get the questions right in order to ask the right questions
Bilingual session preparation - in which Pascal and Portia have fun preparing for a dramatisation of what happens when folks discover the customer's need by asking the right questions

Value-Driven Presenters

Ice cream and tasty cupcakes - meeting people who are passionate about learning new things and know that the best way to learn is through fun and games
Show me the money - helping out at the sneak preview of the Business Value game created by Pascal and Vera, the pair who brought you the ubiquitous XP Game
Doing not just talking - the best sessions at the conference were those offering practical techniques such as Mike Cohn's 'Prioritising the Product Backlog' and Christian and Christoph's 'Conflict Resolution Diagram' from the Theory of Constraints Thinking Tools
Mini celebrations - whenever participants found our sessions useful and relevant so that everyone can become a little more agile every day

Fairytale and Fantasy

2008-08-08T16:36:00.010+01:00

Agile 2008 - Day 1
Pascal and I pair-present a session on improving personal effectiveness called Mirror, Mirror on the Wall... Why Me? The session begins with an Agile re-telling of the fairytale favourite Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Think storytime à la Tarantino for adults. We got a round of applause for the storytelling and many participants left the session with new insights about themselves.

Dramatis Personae

Snow White - team player, works hard, naive
Evil Queen - gets things done, power-hungry, manipulative
Hunter - disciplined, practical, mercenary
Doc - knowledgeable, solution-focussed, arrogant
Bashful - sensitive to others’ needs, quiet, dislikes conflict
Sleepy - entertaining, easily distracted, difficult to motivate
Sneezy - friendly, creatively efficient, allergic to work
Happy - positive, motivated, can ignore problems
Dopey - enthusiastic, lacks discipline, lacks attention to detail
Grumpy - analytical, critical, poor communicator

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Kanban Game - Part 1
Now we begin our journey of self-discovery through a cycle of personal judgment, reflection, introspection and action. Let's take Snow White as an example.

Personal judgment: Does Snow White remind you on anyone? Give examples of why you think they remind you of Snow White.
Reflection and introspection - 'Looking into the Mirror': Why do you think what you think about that person? What does what you think about them say about you?
Action: What are some actions you can take to improve your understanding of that person? What's the smallest thing you can do to improve your relationship with them? Pick one action and do it.

Agile Coach's #1 Secret to Great Teamwork
We cannot change others. We can only change ourselves.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Kanban Game - Part 2
We assemble a fairytale project team. Everyone dreads drawing the Evil Queen card because although the Evil Queen gets things done, she's also power hungry and manipulative. As in real life, we have to find ways to best leverage the skills, experience and interests of every member of our team. Agile is about facing challenges head on and fostering human potential.

Agile Coach's #2 Secret to Great Teamwork
Everyone has value.

Go, Go, Gameplay
You can play the game for free. All Agile Fairytale materials will be available online soon under the Creative Commons licence. Why not define your own happy ending today?

Good Morning Toronto

2008-08-08T12:40:00.006+01:00

The most striking thing about Toronto is its people. It's a place where diversity is reflected in every face in the crowd, from groups of friends to couples and families. Walking along Queen St on a Saturday afternoon gives me hope. Here is a community that realises the sociological, cultural and cognitive evolution that Gene Rodenberry envisioned.

The Bizarre and the Marketplace
With over 1500 attendees, Agile 2008 is the largest collective of Agilistas I've ever seen under one roof. In typical Torontonian fashion, its diversity is represented by more than 400 sessions across 19 tracks in just 4 days. The variety of sessions makes for interesting reading, but I find myself constantly wondering what I'm missing out on. Sometimes too many options is a bad thing when their cost outweigh their value.

Group Smarts
The key attraction for me was James Surowiecki author of The Wisdom of Crowds. James asserts that 'groups of people can be remarkably intelligent'. He believes that crowd intelligence improves the closer they are to the ground.

According to James, hierarchies are a problem because they create incentives for people to conceal information, to do what their bosses want, to game the system. The result: a flawed information system.

Dream Team
James reiterates that the secret to teamwork is collaboration. First we assemble a team of appropriate people, then we create the right conditions.

Quality collective work requires three ingredients:

Aggregation - so that deliverables reflect group judgment to smooth the fluctuations in information quality
Diversity - cognitive diversity is what makes a group smarter - sociological diversity isn't enough
Individuality - because people facing the same direction don't realise when they make the same mistakes

I dare you defy mediocrity. Trust in the group smarts of your team.

The Best of British

2008-08-03T04:15:00.020+01:00

I'm in Toronto for Agile 2008 with Pascal Van Cauwenberghe to present two sessions: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall... Why Me? and Les Neuf Cases (known as 'The Nine Boxes'). Being away from home is great because it gives me time and distance to reflect on my Agile Enablement gigs both past and present.

Nothing is Impossible
Imagine. You're a new recruit for the first Agile team in your global organisation. It's Day 6 of your first ever iteration. The team has been working late for the past couple of evenings. The team believes things can change. The team's doing their best to deliver.

(The open plan office is empty but for the one team still busy at work.)
Coach: A core Agile principle is sustainable pace.
Team: (Silence)
Coach: Deathmarching isn't agile.
Developer: (Silence. Then) Everyone outside the team is watching. (Long pause) They want us to fail.
Team: (Stoic silence)

One Ring to Rule Them All
The next day, I speak to the project manager on the team and raise the issue of the pressure the team feels they're under. 'There are others in the organisation who want us to fail,' I say. He remains silent but for a moment then replies with a bold smile, 'That's because they're afraid of what will happen when we succeed.' We both knew then that success was by no means certain. What we were certain of, however, was that the team would try their hardest to make it a success.

That was a defining moment for everyone on the team. Their stoicism was something so much stronger than an individual's desire to prove others wrong. This was camaraderie in action, each member united with one another by the weightiest of burdens they were helping to carry. Hope. The hope that things can change for the better.

Hate Something, Change Something,
Make Something Better

Over the next few days after my conversation with the team on that fateful summer evening, the team started leaving work on time. They understood that working late was merely hiding problems due to the way teams have always worked in their organisation. They knew that becoming agile meant maintaining a sustainable pace and addressing difficult problems head on instead of working longer hours.

Never Say Never
Fast foward to the end of the three-iteration-long release. The technical lead who reviewed the code delivered described the quality as 'some of the highest quality code' he'd ever seen. After four weeks in end-to-end testing, only one defect was found.

It's a humbling experience to work alongside folks determined to learn and change in spite of being surrounded by a sea of cynicism and resistance. That's what makes my heart sing as an Agile coach. Do something that makes your heart sing. Today.

Much Ado About Something

2008-07-10T18:21:00.007+01:00

Eliyahu Goldratt is an angry old man. He's not that old per se, but he is surprisingly angry for someone who's been making his fortune from IT since the early 80s.

Goldratt is best known as the originator of the Theory of Constraints. He was one of the impressive trio of guest star speakers at Université du SI in Paris last week (the other two being French philosopher Michel Serre and the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong). To my surprise, Goldratt was the wildcard of the bunch.

What got us here won't get us there
'Technology should give us unbelievable results,' began Goldratt as a matter-of-fact. 'Why is it then that we have such amazing processing power and no astonishing results?' he demanded of the developers, Agilists and academics before him.

According to Goldratt, each organisation is haemorrhaging to death because of a clot in its processes. Organisations existed before computers, therefore the limitations we're experiencing existed before computers.

The problem is that the old rules for getting things done were based on localised islands of information because that used to be all the information available at the time. Now that the game has changed, the rules aren't just out-of-date, they're wrong.

An even bigger problem is that the antiquated rules become set in stone when they are reincarnated as a software system. The result: we make more mistakes faster which result in spiralling costs and inevitable failure if we don't revise the rules first.

J'accuse!
Unlike Michel Serre, who employed pure rhetoric to make a similar point about making the most of one's ability, Goldratt chose to lambast IT professionals for being irresponsible and ineffective.

According to Goldratt, as IT professionals, we're creating our own boundary and limiting the success of our organisation. He urged us to go beyond our comfort zone and stretch ourselves beyond our immediate expertise. Goldratt demands we take responsibility for our organisation.

Lost in Translation
After Pascal and I ran our session to demonstrate the Theory of Constraints, a young man came up to me and asked about the relevance of our session at such a technical conference. I remember asking myself the same question after attending the same session at XPDay London run by Pascal several years ago.

'Because a developer can't deliver business value through coding alone,' I replied in French. 'By understanding how to improve the way your team works at both local and global perspectives, you can help improve your organisation's throughput by applying the Theory of Constraints.'

The School of Tough Love
Goldratt concluded that, in his experience, people are much better than we think. It only takes one person to change before others follow suit or risk losing out altogether.

According to Goldratt, the way to achieve an easy life is to take a hammer to your head whereupon you'll be spoonfed for the rest of your life. Goldratt says: Demand more of yourself. What will you choose to do?

Une comédie française

2008-07-04T00:16:00.016+01:00

There's a lot to be said about French charm. The crowd of witty, friendly and plain speaking Parisian Agilistas with whom I had the pleasure of dining twice this week has to be the highlight of my Paris visit.

Le lieu du crime
(Un clan d'agilistes dans un restaurant à côté des Champs-Elysées)
L.: Remarques, avant que je t'ai rencontré, j'ai eu l'impression que tu étais plus agée.
P.: (Petit sourire)
L.: En fait, tu es beaucoup plus jeune que je m'imaginais.
P.: (Encore un petit sourire)
L.: En lisant ton blog, je m'imaginais une petite vieille dame genre Miss Marple.
P.: (Silence. Et puis) Merci pour le feedback.
Tous: (Éclat du rire)

Crime Scene Investigation
(A group of Agilists in a restaurant just off the Champs-Elysées)
L.: Before I met you, I had the impression that you would be much older.
P.: (Smiles)
L.: The fact is, you're much younger than I ever imagined.
P.: (Continues smiling)
L.: In fact, I thought you would be a bit of a Miss Marple.
P.: (Stunned silence. Then) Thank you for your feedback.
All: (Loud burst of laughter)

Feedback continu et mon puzzle
Truth be told, 'Miss Marple' isn't exactly the look I was going for, but it's always nice to get feedback if only to know that my blog is being read. Call me an optimist. Paris je t'aime.

Être et Avoir

2008-07-03T16:18:00.015+01:00

'You have to be an optimist to be an Agile coach.'

A good Agile coach helps teams and individuals become agile through care, consideration and collaboration. What they do works because good Agile coaches believe people can change for the better. It's about putting people first.

WARNING: It feels like magic to those who don't care enough to work out what they need to do and get it done.

Paris Visite

2008-06-30T08:10:00.010+01:00

Lucky Number 3
I'm back in Paris this week, loaded with three kilograms of British sweets for distribution, ready to co-present three action-packed sessions on the Theory of Contraints with Pascal Van Cauwenberghe (co-inventor of the XP Game). It's also going to the third time I'll be co-presenting with Pascal at a conference this year.

A l'aide mon processus m'étrangle
Pascal and I will be running the session twice at Université du SI. Also present will be Eliyahu Goldratt, Bjarne Stroustrup and Neil Armstrong. Physics meets Computer Science meets Consultancy meets Space meets Philsophy meets Humanity. Wowser.

First Things First
We'll be kickstarting a week-long intense learning and collaboration endeavour by presenting the Theory of Constraints session at the XP France usergroup in Paris tonight. I'm very much looking forward to catching up with the usual friendly bunch of Francophone Agilistas!

The Apprentice

2008-06-21T21:11:00.023+01:00

'The best teachers make the best students.'

In my experience, personal agility is rarely tested in a corporate environment. That's why we need conferences to help us grow. Conferences are an ideal way to learn because they combine theory with practice in an unfamiliar environment. More importantly, they force us to exercise our Agile values: Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect.

Type 1: International Conferences - Agile 2008

Agile 2008 is a set-based conference with a breadth of topics and renowned speakers such as James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds. Whether you're a novice or seasoned Agilista there'll be a great choice of sessions to suit your interests and learning style.

Type 2: European Conferences - XP Days Benelux and XPDay London

The Beneluxian crowd are well-known for their friendliness and innovative approach to session topics, formats and social events. First time speakers are strongly encouraged to submit. The XP Days Benelux Committee selects sessions based purely on the quality of proposals. Now you can't get more collaborative and fairer than that.

XPDay London will consist of predominantly Open Space sessions this year. It's a way of injecting innovation into one of the longest running Agile conferences. Watch this space.

Type 3: Technical Conferences - QCon and JAOO

Both QCon and JAOO attract an impressive array of reputable speakers. The majority of sessions are usually in the form of presentations rather than more interactive alternatives such as workshops. Tutorials are available at an extra cost.

Type 4: Conferences in a Foreign Language - Université du SI

Mainstream Agile conferences are becoming multilingual. It's great news because it increases our sources of learning and appreciation for different cultures. Agile 2008 has an entire track in French this year.

Université du SI is a conference with the most impressive lineup I've seen this year to date. Speakers include Neil Armstrong, Bjarne Stroustrup and Eliyahu Goldratt. It's the conference I'm looking forward to most!

Type 5 - A Random Course or Conference of Your Choice

It's good to mix things up a bit. Pick a course or conference you wouldn't normally attend and go. Treat yourself to some real options. Give yourself a chance to learn the unexpected. Most important of all, have fun!

Sound of Music Sing-A-Long

2008-06-02T08:01:00.011+01:00

A recent survey shows that birds don't bother singing in towns and cities because their song cannot be heard. Their country cousins, on the contrary, sing to their hearts' content even though there are fewer humans around to share their song. What makes your heart sing?

Enduring Agile

2008-05-29T01:18:00.024+01:00

'The team remains agile after the coach is gone.'

This is my ultimate acceptance test for effective Agile coaching. True Agile Enablement endures.

Whose line is it anyway?
I come across a number of Agile coaches who talk a lot about Agile. Agile is hard because it's the doing that accompanies the saying that makes a person agile. Nine out of ten coaches I meet are those who live by the mantra of Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do.

Most important of all, their kind of Agile doesn't stick. Teams may think they're agile for the duration of such a coach being onsite, but when the coach is gone, teams are left to make-do and make-believe a fuzzy, undisciplined and/or enforced form of Agile (originally adopted to appease a forceful coach) all on their own.

Give me an example
I recently met Rupert, a charming and personable Agile coach who prides himself on being a doer. He told me that because he was having difficulties with the testers in his client organisation, he had written a code of conduct for the testers so they can work with the rest of the team. A few weeks before that he'd been preoccupied with composing a code of conduct for the business analysts. 'And these are the rules for developers to follow,' says Rupert as he proudly points to a flipchart among the numerous flipcharts of commandments that now cover the team wallspace. Eat your heart out Laura Ashley. Forget floral, swallow those words.

Words, words, words
What about Rupert's team, I found myself wondering with mild anxiety. In my experience, a team has to come up with its own guidelines or manifesto through a collaborative effort. It's part of the initiation process towards becoming a team. What happens next is the enforcement of the manifesto which should come easily - so long as it originated from the team. Otherwise, the manifesto is yet another group of words with no more meaning than a company's mission statement, created by a small clique in a galaxy far, far away from the people who deliver business value.

Sock shop
When coaching, I compare Agile with a pair of socks. The notion of a good pair of socks is likely to vary from person to person. Some prefer pink and others blue while the chaussettes conoisseurs among us might wear Santa socks 365 days of the year. Nonetheless, one thing is certain: we all have a common understanding of what makes a good pair of socks. For instance, most of us would agree that a good pair of socks keeps both our feet warm and dry. Once we understand the purpose of something, it's easy to distinguish genuine function from fancy form.

Genuine Agile has collaboration built-in to make it last. If you’re living the Agile values, trust your instinct when it's telling you your Agile coach is wrong.

Postcard from Galway

2008-05-16T20:31:00.004+01:00

Why Exoftware?

So that on a beautiful summer's day I find myself cycling along the low road on one of the Aran Islands to spend time with the most diverse, smart, nice and fun bunch of Agilistas I know.

Top Picks for XP 2008

2008-05-16T19:58:00.006+01:00

The 9th conference on Agile Processes and XP will be taking place from 10 - 14 June in Limerick, Ireland this year. The programme has an interesting mix of Agile management techniques and technical practices.

Recommended Highlights

Mapping the Value Stream by Mary and Tom Poppendieck - because they're always a treat to listen to
Overcoming Resistance to Change by Dave Nicolette and Lasse Kosela - because I've heard much about both of them and have yet to attend a session of theirs
Test-Driven Enterprise Code by J B Rainsberger - because Joe's well-known on the Agile track and I would like to see Joe present
Coaching Self-Organising Teams by Steve Freeman and Joseph Pelerine - because Joseph's a great speaker and it'll be great to see Steve and Joseph pairing on a session
Open Spaces - because you never know who'll show up and how the sessions will turn out

Beautiful Ireland
I've already committed to presenting at a number of other Agile conferences this year, so unfortunately won't be able to attend this one. June's a lovely time to visit Ireland, so I hope you get to make the most of your stay!

Andon du Jour - Of Mice and Men

2008-05-14T22:45:00.005+01:00

Three Interesting Facts

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
Most people spend more time with their colleagues in their lifetime (by being at work that is) then they will with their own family.
Most people's decision making is based on what they want most rather than what they fear most.

Plus Two Questions

How much do you care about what you're going to do today?
And what about tomorrow?

XPDay France: Une rétrospective

2008-05-13T22:10:00.017+01:00

La méteo
Il fait très beau et chaud à Londres aujourd'hui. Le beau temps m'a fait penser à XPDay France.

What went well

Rencontré des agilistes français sympas et accueillants
Joué le jeu d'espace de Real Options avec une soixantaine participants
À la recherche du temps perdu et l'avoir trouvé: FIAP me rapelle mi école mi auberge de jeunesse
Le dîner avec les programmeurs Erlang
Être invité à presenter l'année prochaine - l'ultime test de recette!

Énigmes

FIAP est entouré par un beau quartier même s'il n'est pas évident tout de suite
Les glaces me manquent pour tous les participants pour mieux fêter l'arrivée de l'été

Mon XPDay France idéal

Plus d'actions, moins de discours pendant les séminaires
Plus d'exercices pour encourager la création des réseaux parmi les participants
Avoir les salles plus grandes et mieux amenagées
Voir des OOMPs (Official One Minute Presentations) inventifs

Mille mercis aux organisateurs d'eXtreme Programming France pour une conférence chouette!

À la recherche du temps perdu*

2008-04-30T20:41:00.012+01:00

I don't get to go to Paris as often as I'd like, so it's a real treat to be off to Paris this weekend to present Real Options: l'ultime frontière at XPDay France on 5 - 6 May.

J'espère que vous allez nous rejoindre. À très bientôt.

* In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past

Once More, With Feeling

2008-04-28T21:19:00.026+01:00

Many thanks to the 28 individuals who chose to play the new Real Options Space game at Agile North mini conference last Saturday. Based on the retrospective feedback, we left folks with much food for thought. As usual, Pascal and I found that each time we play the game it makes us think more deeply about what Real Options really means.

What are Real Options?
Real Options is a decision-making process for managing uncertainty and risk. It's a simple and powerful approach that helps us make better informed decisions, as individuals and in groups, by understanding and responding to the psychological effects uncertainty has on our behaviour.

Real Options means:

You don't have to decide now (aka 'Decide at the last responsible moment')
But you know when to decide
Keep as many options open for as long as possible
Actively gather information until you have to make the decision
Only commit when you must or when you have a good reason to.

A Real Option:

Has a value
Has an expiry date or condition
Costs: cost of buying the option + cost of exercising the option.

You exercise an option only when its value is worth more than its cost. That's where the similarities of the metaphor between Real Options and financial options end.

Isn't that just common sense?
Yes it is! The problem is that common sense doesn't make it common behaviour. Take a look around you. How does your team or manager make decisions under pressure? How do you make decision at times of intense stress?

Uncertainty makes people impatient and afraid. Under pressure, people tend to 1) make the right decision, then 2) prefer to make the wrong decision rather than 3) postpone the decision until the last responsible moment which leads to ill-informed decisions that create problems later on.

Real Options reminds us that waiting is an option, too. The trick is to spend the waiting time on gathering as much information as you possibly can to better understand your options and, where possible, create new ones.

Real Options is difficult because it's an information hungry process. It requires effort and that's one reason why many people don't do it even though they know it's the best way to make optimal decisions.

How much is an option worth?
The value of an option varies and depends on time as well as context. Its value is what it's worth to you at different points in time. The key is knowing the relative value of an option in comparison to the other options you currently hold.

Give me an example
The Agile North mini conference is a good example of a Real Option.

Option value = conference for learning new stuff
Expiry date = deadline by which you have to sign up for the conference
Cost of buying the option = effort required to register (conference entry was free)
Cost of exercising the option = effort for travelling to the conference and giving up a Saturday afternoon to go on a space adventure

Real Options is not nonsense
Real Options is an optimal decision making process. Even though it's common sense, it's surprisingly hard to do.

One participant said, 'The game reminded me about the importance of a lesson I learnt 10 years ago on an orienteering course but never really sunk in.' To find out what that lesson is, come play the Real Options Space game (version français) at XPDay France next week.

Real Options is very simple in theory, but difficult to put into practice - especially at work or when people are placed under pressure. How can you use Real Options to make better decisions?

The Flawed Social Contract

2008-04-24T21:50:00.009+01:00

Imagine: You nip to the loo in an office building you're visiting for the first time. After washing your hands, you look into the mirror and what do you see? A see-through sticker with white writing.

'Bullying. Let's Cut It Out'
Five simple words. Words that send so many alarm bells ringing.

Who let the bullies in? Are they still here? Which teams do they work in? Do people take notice of the message? What difference does that one sticker make?

That's when I notice there are more stickers running along the wall of mirrors, each aligned above a corresponding sink so you can't ignore the problem. Or so you would think.

Cultural or Cuisine Differences?
It's lunchtime. I ask about the stickers as I tuck into the tasty weekly Indian meal. It turns out most people around the table don't really know what bullying means. So I change my question to one of the developers.

'Does Candy respect you?' I venture, bold and plain as the nose on my face.

'She's nice. She answers my questions about requirements,' he replies with a tired but sincere smile.

I meet Candy for the first time that afternoon. Candy's friendly enough. She smiles back, teeth clenched.

Communication without respect is worse than not communicating at all
In my experience, respect is the hardest value of all to live by, partly because you have to dig extra deep as it forms the foundation for the other four values. The main reason it’s the toughest to live by is because it's usually the first thing that most people abandon when the going gets tough.

What does respect mean to you? How would you rate yourself in terms of respect on a scale of 0 - 5 from lowest to highest? Respect begins by recognising, appreciating then leveraging the value each individual brings to a team. How would your team rate you on the scale of respect?

Agile Up North

2008-04-23T12:37:00.005+01:00

The Agile North mini conference is this Saturday. Why am I looking forward to it?

Get to play the new interstellar space game 'Real Options: The New Frontier' with co-host Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and Agilistas up north
Hear the latest stories on Kanban implementation from David Anderson
Learn about Kanban, Cadence and Flow from Karl Scotland

Question: What could be more enticing than learning and board gaming with a bunch of friendly Agile folks on a Saturday?

Answer: The fact that the organisers made entry free for everyone - sign up for your place here!

Andon du Jour - Quel miracle!

2008-04-14T23:32:00.007+01:00

It's Monday morning and what do I find? The 10 centimetres of railing that used to be covered in black-and-yellow sticky tape has been replaced by a metal casing like the rest of the stairwell railing.

Now's that's what I call a happy ending. T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U to the powers that be who made it possible. Who knows? May be they even care about quality - enough to get the job 'done'. Continuous improvement in action.

Paris, je t'aime

2008-04-12T12:20:00.026+01:00

Once upon a time
My manager said to me, 'The team thinks you're doing a good job.' After a short pause he declared, 'And I agree with them.' Then a longer pause. I suspected I was in trouble, but I wasn't sure what for. He continued. 'The thing is, I'm just not sure what it is you actually do.'

From Dawn to Dusk to Present Day
I'm reading a book described as an 'intimate portrait' of the current President of France called L’Aube, le Soir ou la Nuit (Dawn, Evening or the Night) by Yasmina Reza. I was surprised to learn that Sarkozy and I have something in common.

In a conversation with Yasmina about young people today, Sarkozy says, 'Ce qui est un problème c'est quand ils deviennent indépendants et pas gentils, gentils c'est le plus important.' ('The problem with young people is that when they grow up they forget about kindness. Being kind is what matters most.')

It's nice to be nice
That was the gist of the answer I gave my manager all those years ago when he quizzed me about why the team was convinced I was doing a good job. I remember glossing over how I did what I did because my manager graduated from the school of stick-and-carrot management (using the Command and Control Management method). He wouldn't have understood about consideration for others. I knew this because he had previously expressed concerns about my apparently 'weaker' style of management.

Although I couldn't openly admit to my manager that I worked on the principle of Putting People First back then, the team knew and that was plenty good enough for me.

Agile is all about values
Putting People First is also about Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect. Most people I talk to about becoming agile almost always identify respect as the key value from which the others spring.

What's less well-known is that respect wasn't in the first version of the published Agile Values. Some say that respect was omitted because it was a given. Surely people know the importance of being respectful towards one another? But even assuming they know about respect, can we trust that they will always behave in a respectful way? Do you? Towards everyone? After all, everyone is valuable.

In a conversation with Pascal about the values at the SPA conference last month, we both agreed that there is a sixth value: Trust. I've seen trust, when combined with respect, empowers teams to grow beyond all previous prejudices and perceived limitations. Trust from a manager or team lead is crucial. Trust among team members is equally vital.

What did you do this week to improve the way you work? How can you show you trust your team more?

A Wintry Summer's Day

2008-04-06T13:06:00.010+01:00

London, 6 April 2008, 13.20. Everything is covered in snow. On my way home last night, I ask the taxi driver, 'Do you believe it's going to snow tomorrow?'

'I wouldn't be surprised if it did. It's happened once before, so it can certainly happen again,' he replies.

I can tell Richard is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He didn't seem the least bit worried about the uncertainty of the weather. He goes on to tell me he's already evaluated all his options come rain, snow or shine. He's a man unfazed by uncertainty.

And so I find myself faced with more questions than when I first started my journey home:

Dealing with uncertainty is something we Brits excel at. If we're used to the unpredictability of the British weather and have learned to cope with it, why can't we do the same with the uncertainty of projects instead of pretending that plans can be done upfront or that things shouldn't change? That way, we'll be leveraging all the knowledge, experience and wisdom we have when it comes to coping with changeable weather. It's what we Brits have had to live with all our lives. We're lucky that we get so much practice.
It's happened once before, so it can certainly happen again. It only takes something to happen once for things to change forever. It makes the impossible suddenly possible and, more importantly, acceptable. What's the one thing you can try doing this week to change the way you work for the better?

Andon du Jour - London Underground Part Trois - The Grand Finale

2008-03-29T20:18:00.018Z

Dear Reader, I'm pleased to announce that the case of the troublesome staircase has finally been resolved. The staircase was re-opened sometime between late January and February, albeit wrapped up in black-and-yellow sticky tape. Susie from London Transport never got back to me, but at least travellers could resume their new year's resolution of getting healthy by using the staircase once again.

If the staircase were a software application, then the sticky tape would be a testament to a poor design and even worse engineering as somebody somewhere probably decided that Test-Driven Development would be a) too much hardwork; b) not worth the while; c) TDD, what's that then? or d) all of the above.

I felt relieved then disappointed when I first saw the staircase covered in snaky yellow-and-black sticky tape. I figured back then that that was as good as it was going to get. That the tape was there to stay.

The tape was going to be testament to rubbishy British design and engineering everytime I used the staircase. 'At least you can use the stairs now!' I hear the optimists among you valiantly volunteer. And you would have been right.

So you can imagine my surprise today when I discovered the black-and-yellow tape had been replaced by a 'proper' solution: the tape has been replaced with metal casings that run along the length of the rail of the entire staircase. Well, almost.

It seems the team responsible for implementing the proper solution struggled with the use of their measuring tape which means that there's still around 10 centimentres of the railing covered in black-and-yellow sticky tape in one corner. I wonder what else that team is responsible for putting right. And what about the architects and implementers of the staircase design - what do they do now? Do they know about their design failure? Is this really a happy ending?

To Infinity and Beyond

2008-03-29T10:08:00.009Z

Why Agile?
Being an Agile consultant-coach means I'm constantly challenged by what I do, how I do it and, most importantly, why I do it. It never ceases to amaze me how much I learn about myself and others by striving to be agile. Fortunately, that's one of the things that gives most meaning to the work I do.

Agile Everything
I recently presented at SPA and shocked the audience when I alluded to my experience of having been on an Agile death march project.

'Surely that's not possible?' replied the first gasp from the audience.

'Isn't that blasphemy?' resonated a second gasp around the room.

'I'm intrigued by your negative Agile experience,' said an Agile coach with a gleeful smile, pen poised, ready to mark me down on my Agile competency.

Why wouldn't Agile death marches exist? After all, Agile is just another methodology. It's simply another way of getting people to work together. You can't immunise your project from failure just because you say you're doing Agile. Now that would really be make believe. I call it play pretend.

Growing Old Gracefully
Q: What could possibly be tougher than growing old?
A: Trying to be agile when everyone else believes they are but aren't.

Earlier this month, I spent a lovely Spring evening with a bunch of young Agile enthusiasts at QCon London and was asked, 'What would be your top 3 life tips?' I surprised myself with the following response.

Be true to your passion. Do what you love. I didn't believe this was possible or sustainable when I was younger. I now know it is. Depending on your point-of-view, to do otherwise would either be a pity or a waste.
Being better than the rest is easy when everyone else is striving for mediocrity. If you want to stand out from your peers, you only need to be mediocre++. Is that all you really want to achieve?
Use your gut instinct to help make informed decisions. Having only ever had a career in IT, over the years I had learnt to value my logical brain over my creativity side. Experience has taught me that tapping into my creativity creates opportunities I never thought possible.

One life. Live it well.
The only real currency we have is time. Invest wisely.

SPA 2008: A Retrospective

2008-03-20T16:52:00.046Z

I'm fairly certain there's no better way of spending four Spring days in Bedfordshire, England than at the Software Practice Advancement (SPA) conference. I left feeling re-energised with plenty of food for thought on what continuous improvement (Kaizen) really means.

What worked well: The Highlights

Playing the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Kanban game with 16 grownups, described by participants as 'curious, fun with excellent materials' and got lots of feedback on how to improve the game.

Co-presenting a Real Options session with Chris Matts and Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and explored alternative ways of how to think about Real Options. I think we were over-ambitious in our refactoring of the session - fortunately, the SPA audience remained enthusiastic and receptive to innovation!

Helped put together a Teamwork Techniques BoF (Birds of a Feather) with Pascal and Charles Weir. It was a great example of collaborative working and learning through doing. The session was successful because it leveraged the experience and knowledge of all the participants which enhanced the quality of learning, usefulness of materials and the amount of fun had by all. The techniques covered included Creative Thinking process, Edward de Bono's 6 Thinking Hats, Chris Avery's Responsibility Model and Burndown charts.

Excellent session on Awesome Acceptance Testing by Joe Walnes and Dan North. The thoughtful delivery made a usually dry (but very important) topic interesting, entertaining, educational and enabling.

John Nolan's session on Getting to 'No' on how to say 'No' in a constructive way.

Ideas for making SPA even better

More sessions like Joe and Dan's with a well-defined purpose, tangible and pragmatic advice and entertaining presenters
More genuinely-interactive learning like the Teamwork Techniques BoF
Form quartets based on at least common interest to make them more meaningful rather than dividing people into random groups of 4
More opportunities for active conference attendee participation
More emphasis on accelerated learning and personal development in terms of session structure and content because the best software is developed by teams of effective individuals

Thank You!
To Pascal and Vera for their enthusiasm, feedback, support and being great idea factories.

To David Peterson, Maria Bortes and Dyan Corutiu for participating in the rehearsal session and providing constructive feedback that helped us use the kanban cards more.

To Chris Cooper-Bland for co-presenting and assembling the final presentation and believing in dwarfish appeal.

A big T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U as usual to Jim for bringing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to life as kanban cards and making the game real.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall... Why Me?

2008-02-17T19:59:00.012Z

With Spring almost in the air, Agilistas around Europe are getting ready to attend the annual SPA 2008* residential conference from March 16 - 19 in Bedfordshire, UK.

In the Land of Agile Fairytales
Are you baffled yet fascinated by the behaviour of those around you? Have you ever wondered why they do what they do? If you answered 'Yes' to at least one of the questions above, then come join Chris Cooper-Bland and me at SPA on a mini-adventure of self-discovery with help from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

This is your chance to learn more about yourself to give you a better chance of understanding others. Think Kaizen Meets Agile Fairytales.

This is the second themed session in the Agile Fairytale series, beginning with a game of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Kanban to help you identify the characters who interest, trouble, confound and/or confuse you most at work.

Once you’ve developed new or more in-depth insights into your own character, you will be able to choose from one of four techniques to help improve your personal effectiveness. See here for more details on the session.

I'll also be helping out with Chris Matts's session on Real Options. He reckons learning about Real Options will change the way you make decisions forever. Some say he's seldomly wrong.

Post St. Valentine's

2008-02-15T20:15:00.015Z

After the mailman arrived yesterday morning, I found myself struggling to open my front door. Some of you probably had the same problem.

In my case, I couldn't open my front door not because there was a gargantuan pile of love post but because I wasn't at home. I was on an important mission. I was in Brussels meeting a completely new bunch of Agilistas to do work. Serious work.

Mission Impossible
Our goal was to be sure we delivered to our customers what they wanted. We already had a huge backlog of requirements. We had lots to do but no way of evaluating effectively the value of the requirements to our different customers with potentially conflicting priorities.

Each of us in the group had at least three roles. We were:

A member of the delivery team
A type of customer
An individual who wanted to work with and learn from other Agilistas.

The Crew
The individuals present were a great bunch. They were my favourite kind of Agilistas - demonstrably open, friendly, inclusive and enthusiastic. Most important of all, they were Active Doers not Snoozers.

Together, we turned Mission Impossible to Mission Possible. Yes, there was going to be a lot of work ahead of us, but deep down we also knew it would be a great source of fun. Satisfaction was guaranteed so long as we ensured what we did M-A-T-T-E-R-E-D. To our customers and, by association, to us.

What We Did Next
We began by establishing the foundation to any effective, well-functioning group: our values.

We began by identifying and prioritising the values of the group using a brainstorming-clustering exercise.
Next we identified our customers and grouped them by type.
Then, using voting finger poker, we rated the importance of each of our group's values from each customer's perspective.
Then we reflected and evaluated what the numbers told us. In my experience, this is the most insightful step in the process. On this occasion, everyone learnt something new about the correlation between our values and our customers. This step is usually a useful indicator of the value and quality of data we get from the exercise.
Finally we re-prioritised our group's values in the order of priority to our customers. This is because we all believed customer-value is what matters most.

The Magic Behind the Wisdom of Crowds
Thanks to the Wisdom of Crowds theory, we were able to derive and distil the values that reflected the essence of eleven independent, thinking individuals, each with different perspectives and motivations.

In the time it takes to make a roast dinner, the eleven of us established a common understanding with a common currency: four key values to guide us in what we do based on what's most important to our customers and what's most important to us. Of course this is only one way of deriving a value currency. What's important isn't the working out, but what you end up with that determines whether or not you and your team are doing work that really M-A-T-T-E-R-S.

The Story of the Gigantic Spider In the Room

2008-01-28T21:36:00.000Z

'It's not so much where my motivation comes from but rather how it manages to survive.'

- Louise Bourgeois

I went to see the Bourgeois exhibition at Tate Modern last weekend. I couldn't help but reminisce as I stood marvelling at the gigantic metal spiders like I did exactly ten years ago. Back then, the Dotcom boom had just begun and most business people knew we were onto something big. When the bubble burst, I managed to survive five iterations of staff reduction. All we got from management was radio silence.

The Power of 3
It was around that time that I read about a particular social experiment. A group of researchers had enlisted two types of people to test: those who considered themselves optimists and others who considered themselves pessimists.

It was an experiment of two rounds. The first was made up of groups of three, consisting of two optimists and one pessimist. Each group then spent 15 minutes talking to one another.

The point of the experiment was to determine which would be the dominant mindset at the end of the timed period given two different types of influence. Not surprisingly, the majority of groups found themselves feeling more optimistic after the first round.

In the second round, the makeup of the groups changed to one optimist and two pessimists. Again, each group spent 15 minutes talking to one another. What do you think was the outcome?

Participants by and large said they felt more optimistic after the round. What does that outcome tell us about sharing? How can we apply that outcome to stressful situations? When was the last time you talked things over instead of bottled it up?

Think Spring

2008-01-19T12:43:00.001Z

It was nice to catch up with many of my ex-colleagues from SpringSource (formerly known as Interface21) at the launch of Spring Exchange in London this week.

Since 2006 the company has grown by what feels like an order of magnitude. The collaborative nature of SpringSource's product development teams with the user community has ensured that Spring adoption continues at the rate hot potatoes sell on a cold winter's day.

I still remember the day Rod Johnson told me about his new company based on open source. Back then, Java open source combined with a business model were a rarity. The key problem was sustainability. For the product developers and most importantly for the product.

Having used a prototype of Spring back in the days when EJB was an emerging technology, Spring for me is a strong example of quality software through collaboration (with both open source and commercial partners) and constant innovation. It represents what a team of brilliant minds can achieve along with the wisdom of the open source crowd.

The next BIG technical conference in London will be QCon in March where you'll get another chance to meet the Spring team. Maybe I'll see you there.

Carpe Annum

2007-12-31T15:17:00.001Z

Here's your chance to define a new beginning...

Andon du Jour - London Underground Part Deux

2007-12-28T13:25:00.001Z

It seems the topic of the London Underground has struck a chord with many readers. Unfortunately, it's not so much a symphony as irritation caused by chafing after a day out on the beach.

So I decided to contact London Transport regarding the mystery of the closed staircase.

Here is their response sent on 23 December 2007:

"I'm sorry for any problems this may have caused you. I've spoken to the Duty Station Manager responsible for North Greenwich and he has explained the following to me. The staircase was closed on health and safety grounds due to a customer incident. The management team along with our contractors, Tube Lines, are currently investigating and hope their proposed plans will mean the staircase can be used once more."

The seemingly helpful Customer Service Advisor, let's call her Susie, closes with:

"I hope you find the above information helpful and once again please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this may cause."

It's possible that her apology is genuine, heartfelt even, but I just don't feel the love. I don't sense she really cares. If I were Susie, I would have:

Provided an estimated date on which the issue will be resolved (and if I didn't know, I would find out since I should know);
Let the customer know that I'll keep them updated with the progress of the handling of the issue;
Find out the full impact the closed staircase was having on the customer since the information may influence the speed at which the issue needs to be resolved.

But Susie didn't do any of that. Most people would have given up after the first email. I suspect Susie was hoping I was one of those kind of people. I mailed her back requesting more information:

"Many thanks for your reply. As the staircase has been closed for at least 3 months, are you able to provide an estimate on when it will be re-opened? We use the station daily and have not seen any signs of inspection going on."

Credit to Susie, she responds back:

"Presently we can't estimate an accurate timescale however, as soon we have a definitive date I will duly let you know."

Dear reader, rest assured I, too, will duly let you know. The good news is that we have a lead. Tube Lines. They seem to be the impediment du jour. That's consistent with the information from the station manager.

Meanwhile, should you have any concerns regarding London Transport, don't hold back. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear from you. Let them know what you think. You can reach them at: Customer.Services@tube.tfl.gov.uk.

Hate something, change something, make something better. It's unlikely you'll make it worse.

The Importance of Christmas

2007-12-20T11:10:00.000Z

I like Christmas. A lot. I've come to appreciate Christmas like I do weddings. I feel the same way towards Agile. All three operate on a manifesto of sorts that people can choose to either respect and adhere to or flout and play-pretend.

Everyone just wants to have a good time. And why not? In my experience, practicing Agile is a bit like driving. When you tell people you use Agile to deliver projects, you're signalling intent, one of collaboration instead of conflict. After signalling comes fulfilment, made real through behaviour and action.

It's like driving to the shops and indicating you want to turn left and then actually turning left. Unfortunately, many of the Agile drivers I meet signal left and then turn right. These are the same people who wonder why their passenger-team doesn't believe or trust them to drive safely. Unskilled drivers are a menace to themselves and everyone else on the road.

Agile, like Christmas, creates a culture of shared reality. By having a common and worthwhile goal, one that produces genuine value for instance, people will figure out difficult (impossible) problems like they've always done: through co-ordination, cooperation and convergence.

Agile is the ultimate endurance test because it demands openness, stamina, consistency and constancy. What would your project be like if everyone tried their best to get along with one another, do the right thing and do things right? It would be like Christmas. Everyday. For Everyman. How civilised.

Make 2008 matter. Instead of letting others make mincemeat out of you. Thanks for reading. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Agile Adverts 2007

2007-12-15T21:41:00.000Z

I recently came across this rather fantastic competition from Agile 2007.

'Developer Abuse'
This one's errily accurate. Remember: it doesn't have to be this way.

'Being Agile is Our Favourite Thing'
This entry's quite clever, entertaining and hilarious. Watch it with your team. Play it loud. Sing along. Do whatever it takes to maximise your Agile reach.

A Tribute to My Team

2007-12-14T08:32:00.001Z

Yesterday, I participated in the last daily standup with my latest distributed project team in 2007. Special thanks to Pete, Jeff, Smitha, Barry, Owen, Simon, Manoj, Nat, Tom, Tamas, Grant and of course, Ivan! Their greatest achievement was helping to maintain the joy-pain equilibrium that, for me, gave the project meaning. It's people who deliver projects, but it takes real teams to deliver quality sofware. Most important of all, they helped make learning possible.

'No egos' - that's an observation from the project retrospective we had back in November that sticks in my mind most. How many teams can say that I wonder? This doesn't mean we were cold-hearted, dull automatons. Not at all. Because we had a shared understanding of what collaboration really means, we raised impediments (even if that meant sometimes we had to face more obstacles than achievements). And we pulled together to resolve them. Everyone just mucked in. You have to acknowledge a problem before you can fix it.

Over time, we came up with our own team manifesto by defining:

what an 'open environment' means to us
what a 'team' means to us
what 'quality software development' means to us.

While the manifesto is an achievement in itself, it clearly demonstrates that the best ideas come from each individual thinking as an individual as well as working as part of a team.

For me, the best day of the project was the team gathering - a day where we began brainstorming ideas that contributed to our manifesto ultimately and the day when we played the XP Game. Team Tarka vs Old Peculiar. The pictures tell the real story: so this is what a no-egos team looks like. Seeing is believing. It's up to all of us to demand better of ourselves.

The Next Killer App: MBPPF!

2007-12-09T18:30:00.000Z

It began with MBWA...

I first came across the acronym MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around coined by Tom Peters) during the DOTCOM boom. I'd just started working as a Java developer. Managing By Walking Around is about wandering the 'shop' floor and observing how your workers do their job. It's about getting and staying in touch with the people doing 'work-that-matters'* (also from Tom Peters). It's about learning about impediments so that, as a manager, you can help remove them. It all makes sense.

As far as I can tell, it's equivalent to Toyota's Genchi Genbutsu (Go and see for yourself). Unfortunately, the particular implementation of MBWA I was exposed to seemed more like a constitutional, post-lunch walkabout by a manager who didn't care much about talking to all the people, let alone hear about our progress or concerns.

I suppose that experience made me begin to doubt management. That and the fact that pay increases seemed to be negotiated down the pub instead of being based on performance during work hours. Call me old-fashioned - it's simply not right.

Then one day, the time came for me to transition from developer to management. I'd read a lot about Agile and recognised the importance of delivering business value. Like all managers, I was faced with two thorny problems: 1) business value was difficult to quantify, so the movers and shakers sent out an edict of: 'Do as I say' using MosCoW rules; 2) developers weren't enamoured with poorly defined requirements - it's hard to derive satisfaction from delivering a never-ending 'something'.

Still, I beat the 'Deliver-Maximum-Business-Value' drum, because that's what leaders do, right? Business Value = Job + Salary -> Survival + Nice Holidays. For the department. For the developers. And for me.

The Next Killer App: MBPPF!
But delivering business value alone is not enough. Not for me. Doing work-that-matters on its own isn't enough either. Success means making the most of your options. Maximise your people's potential and watch your options grow.**

What motivates me most is what I call MBPPF*** (Managing By Putting People First). The MBPPF model works like this. It looks familiar because all of its constituent parts are taken from existing models. Good ideas are, more often than not, composites of existing ideas. If you have to have wheels, round ones work best in my experience.

What does Putting People First mean?

Start with a main goal - To deliver Genuine Value to your customers: Identify what people want (preferably things that would enhance their lives in some way). Something for which there is a demand is easier to sell. This means you can focus 100% on differentiation and quality.
Do enough upfront business analysis: Brainstorm how best to fulfil this want (taking into consideration the product's context such as time and place). Know why people need it, when they need it by, how long they need it for and what else they can use it for.
Build a team that cares: Put together a bunch of competent people who want to fulfil this want, as a team of creative, thinking individuals. Show you care by consulting, involving, informing and empowering your team.
Everyone does work-that-matters: This is a great motivation for many people. It leads to the elimination of waste and can be leveraged to put best practices in place. When you do something that matters, most people naturally want to get better at it. Now that's a real bonus.

Sample practices of MBPPF!

Put people-interest ahead of everything else (and watch the decision-making machine produce the optimal solution).
Spend time with people because they matter most.
Hire people better than yourself.
Know when you need help then ask for it. I'm constantly amazed by what I get back in return.

The rest is based on what works best when you apply the principle of Putting People First. Try it. You might like it.

*Work-that-matters: Have you noticed how many organisations are encouraging their staff to get involved with planting trees and painting classrooms these days?

** I like to maximise mine with Real Options.

*** MBPPF: The Disclaimer: Just as any successful diet/fitness regime requires willpower, MBPPF requires people willing to get involved, people who will muck in as pigs instead of play chicken.

Festive XtC: 11 December in London

2007-12-07T20:09:00.000Z

Suffering from the winter blues? Fed up with never-ending requirements discovered during UAT? Then come along for a spot of festive cheer and peer coaching at next week's Extreme Tuesday Club in London. Hope to see you there! Where? There.

Kanban du Jour - The Tell-Tale Tannenbaum

2007-12-06T20:33:00.000Z

It's that time of the year again: gratuitous displays of a jovial fat man in a red suit scaling miniature gingerbread houses and base jumping off slippery rooftops. If the advertisement boards are correct, it's also time for seasonal teeth whitening. O! And, of course, the hordes of plastic trees in the shopping arcades. (Better a plastic tree than a tree on death row in the living room.)

Ho! Ho! Ho! Spot the problem
UK tradition has it that shopkeepers save up to pay for decorations to attract more custom during the Christmas period. In return, they get to worry about not only having their in-store goods stolen, but their pricey Christmas baubles being taken too. The plastic card boasting of CCTV monitoring is an example of trust broken. It tells us, loud and clear, that we are a thievery nation.

Where did all the trust go?

It reminds me of when managers give their teams approximate (fictitious) deadlines to work towards instead of actual ones. One date for the development team, another for the customer. Presumably it's because they think that developers are lazy and won't work hard without unrealistic deadlines. Such behaviour helps us identify the chicken managers from the pig managers. By keeping the actual deadline to themselves, such managers are witholding information. By withholding information, they are limiting the team's options to work optimally towards successful delivery. By putting in a false constraint, a manager is actively guaranteeing their project will fail. By doing so, they're also limiting their chances of personal success. If you are committed to a team, witholding information is illogical.

Teams know when they're being controlled. Unlike collaboration, the command-and-control style of management can reduce or even eliminate trust. Without trust, there can be no loyalty and commitment. Without loyalty and commitment, you can forget about performance. Chicken managers often confuse collaboration with coercion.

You have to put trust in to get trust out.

Andon du Jour - London Underground

2007-11-29T20:16:00.002Z

Imagine: It's 7.30 am. Another funfilled weekday is only a tube ride away. On your descent down into the station what do you see? Not just one, but two information boards. If you squint you'll see the sticky tape. The posters are homemade. You can tell that whoever put the posters up are doing their best to help. They're actually offering information. The boards are there to workaround a problem.

To show my appreciation, I decide to blog about them, so I take some pictures. Someone resembling a station manager approaches me, uncertain of my next move.

"What are you doing, miss?" he says.

"I was just taking some pictures," I reply.

Then, as though struck by inspiration for want of something more to say, he says, "You're not allowed to take pictures, miss." By this point I feel like a time traveller's wife, revisiting Dickensian times.

"But I think these posters are really very useful," I say. He smiles. I realise I have his attention, so I ask the question that my friend Jim and I have been asking ourselves for the past three months: "Why is the stairwell closed?" I had speculated that perhaps it was due to a health and safety issue, to which Jim replied at the time, "It seems to me the only danger if it were open is that they might actually have to clean it."

"I don't know, miss. I can't really remember. It seems so long ago," replies the nice man.

Suddenly, another official appears from my right and thrusts a card under my nose. This is fast becoming a minor situation. Like the time I was arrested by the Moldovan police. "Please call this number if you have any complaints," he says.

"But I don't wish to complain," I reply. "I was just asking for information."

The official who gave me the card stares at me and says, "Please. Please call up and complain about the stairwell. THEY haven't done anything about it for ages. There's nothing we can do. Someone cut their hand using the staircase ages ago." Perhaps that stumbling someone was under the influence I thought, having traversed up and down the staircase on a number of occasions myself and emerged hands intact.

I knew it - the people working at the station were trying to be helpful. They wanted to run the station as best they could. So who are these people known as 'THEY' who are blocking instead of helping? How many THEYs and THEMs do you work with? What if I told you there is only US?

XPDay 2007 London: A Retrospective

2007-11-28T21:47:00.001Z

I've been surrounded by a lot of grey for the past couple of months. It may be the dreary autumnal London weather. Or perhaps it's the sea of sombre suits reflected in glassy buildings in Canary Wharf. Fortunately, going to JAOO for the first time back in September helped cheer me up. Going to XPDay London last week gave me hope.

What worked well: The Highlights
It's the attendees who make the conference: I met some very cool, contemplative and collaborative people. By cool, I mean friendly, modest and fun. When combined with cool, contemplative and collaborative best describe what people who really get Agile mean to me. Instead of meeting resistance, things just flow.

In an opposing context, the 3 Cs can mean: colluding, corroborative and complicit. Apparently that's how some people behave when things get tough. Unfortunately, it's also when how you behave matters most in determining the outcome. Over time, I've come to recognise Agile as a mindset and it's really easy to spot the bona fide ‘Agilistas’ (supporters of Agile) from those who play pretend. It's a bit like watching bullies prance about in tutus. They’re usually those who don’t quite ‘fit’.

Creative sessions such as the Conversation Café by Simon Baker and Gus Power asking the difficult question - ‘Have you compromised your agility?’: I especially liked the scene setting with paper table cloths, funky electric tea lights and piles of lollipops. It seemed to me a well-crafted social experiment in which participants were lulled into a comfortable state of mind before being electric-jolted into discussions that challenged their fundamental beliefs in what being Agile means. The combination of this polemic session with Steve Freeman’s panel discussion on ‘Have we lost our mojo?’ helped reunite a crowd that had become fractured by difficult conversations (I described it as invoking a tribal reaction much like football does – understandably, of course).

For me, the best sessions were those that encouraged us to fight against organisational inertia and question conventional wisdom. Simon and Gus did an excellent job of reminding us to challenge mediocrity. It may be the norm in your organisation, but it doesn't have to be that way.

My three wishes for XPDay London 2008

1. For David Stoughton to do the first keynote
2. For Chris Matts to do the second keynote
3. For David Stoughton to do the closing speech (we should have one because I share Seth Godin’s view that ‘Goodbyes’ are important).

Chris Matts will undoubtedly make a technicolour splash as one of the organisers of next year’s conference along with Keith Braithwaite with his calm and collective takt. I hope to see you there.

As for my joint session on 'The Yellow Brick Road'

Special thanks to Tamas Jano and Tom Geary for test-driving the Wizard of Oz kanban cards. Many thanks to Duncan Pierce for mucking in with what he described as 'the most unusual session' he's ever worked on. And a big T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U to Jim for making shadowy figments of imagination real. If you want to know how the session went, you can read Pascal Van Cauwenberghe's account of it here. Thanks for the coverage, Pascal!

And now for a commercial break

2007-11-11T10:23:00.003Z

Hate something, change something, make something better. Another key source of inspiration for this blog is one man’s pursuit of a better, cleaner, diesel engine, that of Honda’s Chief Engineer Kenichi Nagahiro. The advert works because it transmits a meaningful message: it reminds us there's always choice and we as individuals have the ability to make change happen.

Click here for the full visual and sing-along version to 'Hate Something, Change Something'. You know you want to.

Big Brother's Little Brother

2007-11-01T08:28:00.001Z

Steven Levitt reminds me of a younger version of Tom Peters. I heard him speak at a luncheon gathering recently and he certainly lived up to his reputation as co-author of Freakonomics. I like Levitt because he strikes me as being genuinely exceptional at what he does. Most important of all, he speaks sense and management listens (or at least nods in unison).

A quote I learnt from a history lesson decades ago is this: 'Everyone knows what's right, but only the Spartans do it.' As I recall, it was uttered by an old man at an Olympic Game after a young Spartan gave up his seat in an arena full of firmly seated Romans.

Like the boy who cried out at the sight of the naked Emperor, Levitt said the problem with the business today is that they think feedback is no longer important.

Levitt's lessons on success seem simple:

Think differently in an obvious way
Go where innovation is valued
Get feedback then follow through (instead of succumbing to conventional wisdom).

Perhaps by continuing our search for excellence, we are now connecting more and more people committed to 'make things new'. Newness increases appeal and enough appeal can create the tipping point that makes change possible.

Levitt shows us how economics can be much more than bamboozle-by-bean-counting. He's a brilliant example of how we can turn selfish programming into green energy. Marvellous.

The Emperor's New Clothes

2007-10-31T08:47:00.000Z

Q: What do Tom Peters and Steven Levitt have in common?
A: They make a living out of having and using a rare and precious thing that has made them kings. Their magic is no secret: it’s common sense.

Tom Peters is a classic great speaker. He’s charming, inspirational and a brilliant performer. It was interesting to hear him speak about excellence in the enterprise 25 years on from when ‘In Search of Excellence’ was first published. According to the title of his talk, he’s ‘Still in Search of Excellence’ – an observation that’s at once disconcerting as well as hopeful. Disconcerting because, from experience, we haven’t solved the problem yet (in spite of the number of man years spent in this pursuit); hopeful because it gives us something to do. Problems are good. It’s often the solutions that make things go bad. I’m constantly reminded that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’

Tom began by assuring the audience that we were all leaders – weren’t we? He then went on to say: “We all know we’re phonies and because we’re afraid to expose our weaknesses we don’t ask the interesting questions. It’s our job as leaders to ask interesting questions.”

Tom described the essence of enterprise as:

Cause – worthy of commitment
Space – for encouragement and initiative
Decency – respect and humane
Service
Excellence
Servant Leadership

He then hollered a typical management mantra to the crowd like some punk rock star: ‘Park your brain at the door dude and row the slave ship!’ then lowering his voice, he continued: ‘But we have computers to row the slave ship.’ According to Tom, our only chance to succeed in globalisation is to leverage the creative and intellectual skills of our teams. Starbucks is a good example of a human function being replaced by a machine. Since coffee making is done by a machine, what Starbucks buys is individuality in their staff. When asked why Starbucks staff are constantly smiling, one manager said as a matter-of-fact: ‘We are people who smile.’

Tom, like Levitt, fully acknowledges that he has nothing profound to say. Instead, what he does has been described as ‘blinding flashes of the obvious’. So here’s the latest newsflash: ‘Put your people before your customers,’ says Tom Peters. What will you do?

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

2007-10-18T09:02:00.000+01:00

Here’s a chance to swap your bit part for a major role in the Agile re-telling of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for your organisation.

Starring:

You as Dorothy
Agile as the Emerald City
Agile adoption path as the Yellow Brick Road
Session presenters (Duncan Pierce and me) as the Wizard of Oz

I'll be co-presenting ‘The Yellow Brick Road’ at XPDay London in November. The session will be a self-contained workshop as well as a potential kick-off session for a year-long programme where you will learn about and practice peer-coaching to transform your way of working from suboptimal to Agile. You will get the chance to work with peers in similar organisations and draw on a wealth of experiences from how to deal with real problems to brainstorming and selecting effective solutions. We hope to create a setting where you will be able to give and receive support as you apply solutions through an iterative and collaborative process of plan-do-inspect-adapt.

To find out more about XPDay London, go to: http://www.xpday.org/

Agile - A New Beginning

2007-10-10T21:56:00.000+01:00

I met a number of people who expressed an interest in learning more about Agile this evening at an event organised by the British Computer Society's Business Information Systems Specialist Group (BISSG). Here's what I found useful when I first came across Agile:

Agile Software Development - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

The Agile Manifesto - http://agilemanifesto.org/

Kaizen - Continuous Improvement - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

Scrum - Go to http://www.agilealliance.org/ and search for 'scrum'. Scrum is an implementation of Agile that I'm most interested in currently, mainly because it's most suited for teams who are used to Waterfall development (the old-fashioned, most prevalent way of developing software). XP is probably too difficult to adopt as a first stab at Agile for most Waterfall-oriented teams, hence Scrum is possibly a better (easier) place to start because it focuses more on how people do things rather than what they should do.

Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change by Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres
An excellent introduction to the Agile values and principles along with the practices of XP. This is the second version of Kent's book (this one's published in 2004 and the first was in 1998). If you've got time, it's worth reading both versions to see how XP has evolved.

The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas
Not specifically related to Agile, but a must-read for any self-respecting developer. However, this book isn't only for techies. It lays out the best practices that I think every IT professional should know if they're involved in the software development lifecycle in any way, shape or form. To non-coding readers: don't feel compelled to read it all, skip over the code samples, but the majority of the content makes for an easy and interesting read about how quality software should be developed.

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck
For me, this was an brilliant introduction to Agile software development and the concepts of Lean.

Agile Project Management with SCRUM by Ken Schwaber
This book provides a great high-level overview of what Scrum looks and feels like.

More recently, I've come across Henrik's book on his hands-on implementation of Scrum. It's worth knowing at least the fundamentals of Agile and Scrum before introducing Scrum into your team (and/or organisation). I would suggest reading Henrik's book after looking through Ken's and Mary's books.

Scrum and XP from the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg
An excellent handbook on how to start using Scrum: http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp-from-the-trenches.

JAOO 2007: A Retrospective

2007-10-01T21:24:00.000+01:00

Why JAOO?
I left Aarhus last Friday tooled up with numerous good ideas, a dozen or so new Agile friends (you can never have enough of those) and a reading list the length of my arm thanks to acting on Eberhard Wolff's conference recommendation. Thanks Eberhard!

What worked well: Conference sessions - The Highlights
Jim Coplien on Scrum Architecture: Jim started by highlighting that use cases describe what a system does and architecture represents what that system is. A common problem on Agile projects is that a lot of teams become unstuck during the third sprint because there is no architecture. After all, architecture is what enables developers to work together. Jim therefore recommended we assert what we know on an architecture in order to provide a high level design, taking no more than three days, made up of abstract base classes and domain dictionaries (two sides of A4 per domain). Jim went on to say that TDD (Test-Driven Development) does not produce (good) architectures. That architectures cannot be derived from unit tests. That we should adopt architecture-driven design instead of unit-test-case-driven design. The session hit the sweet spot as a technical Agile session: suitably thought-provoking or controversial depending on how you interpreted his presentation.

Kevlin Henney on developer professionalism in terms of economy and elegance: Kevlin was eloquent, erudite and entertaining. He said that 'in searching for identity, we need to look beyond caricatures and preconceptions' and urged developers to consider the differences between engineering and craft. Kevlin described software engineering as a specialisation of information engineering. Because software engineering is an emerging discipline, it therefore follows that what we are experiencing is 'emerging professionalism'. That is all the more reason we should be cautious of the motivations behind our designs.

Eric Gamma on developers playing Jazz: Eric demo'ed Jazz, the new development management productivity tool integrated with Eclipse. It looks ideal for projects that can be developed using Eclipse and Agile. Eric described the Eclipse way as 'team first' and emphasised that there shouldn't be a need on teams for people to act solely as architects. After all, everyone on a technical team should be involved in architecture because they care about it.

Justin Gehtland on Ruby: Justin's enthusiastic delivery reminded me to take a second look at Ruby.

What worked well: Tutorials - Top Picks
Pollyanna Pixton on collaborative leadership: An unusual tutorial at JAOO focussed entirely on leadership with practical advice on how to hire the right people and deal with troublesome ones. Pollyanna's hearty humour and stories reminded me that Good Leaders exist.

Henrik Kniberg on Scrum and XP from the trenches: Henrik began by entertaining us with his piano-playing and went on to demonstrate by example how he implemented Scrum in thorny environments. He struck a chord when he said, 'Death marches are not allowed in Scrum' because I had said something along those lines just the week before the conference. Henrik was very creative in his delivery of the session and is the epitome of Scrum pragmatically and successfully applied.

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock on the art of telling design stories: Rebecca was a sympathetic and knowledgeable presenter who used technical examples and analogies to show us how to convey technical designs and present difficult technical situations to challenging audiences.

What could have been better: In summary

More Agile tech sessions like Jim's
More stylish and literary speakers like Kevlin
Make conference sessions more useful like tutorials
More networking opportunities like Diana Larsen's Open Space sessions which were excellent at bringing likeminded and contradictory individuals together with many leaving happy and invigorated

Knowing Me, Knowing You

2007-09-30T21:24:00.002+01:00

'Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to.'

- The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

This blog has been inspired partly by Dawkins's examination of the biology of selfishness and altruism and his assertion that "we are born selfish". The manifestations and consequences of his assertion in terms of software development are what I have coined as (the art of) Selfish Programming. Together we can thwart it and may be even turn it into 'environmentally-friendly' energy.