Creating A Leader-Leader, Rather Than Leader-Follower, Culture Within An Organization

(Hat tip to Mike Cohn for the original link via Twitter): I really like this article about U.S. nuclear sub commander David Marquet and his approach to leadership. While the language used (on board the sub) might be too formal and stilted to work in a software environment, the ideas behind it - ensuring control, competence and clarity - would work perfectly in an Agile development shop.  Or, put another way, the goal is to have everyone on the team able to make good decisions because they understand the mission (including the relative priorities) and are actively engaged in the completion of it.  No one's "just following orders," nobody feels unappreciated, and every member is pulling in the same direction as the team.

Definitely worth a read for anyone out there still doing the 9-to-5.

Bringing Back The 40-Hour Work Week

In Canada, I guess we'd say "the 37.5-hour work week," but other than that small difference, this Salon article applies perfectly to our situation here.  The article presents a compelling case for working at what those of us in the Agile community call "a sustainable pace."  Nice to see that there's not only scientific research aplenty to back it up, but also a couple centuries of historical precedent that apparently most employers have managed to forget.

Converting Story Points To Hours (That Old Chestnut)

Mike Cohn posted a very nice explanation of why it's such a challenge to turn story points, the unit of estimation used by many Agile (and some non-Agile) teams, into hours, the beloved unit of project managers the world over.  As Mike points out, it's a somewhat reasonable question when applied to a single team whose composition has been kept relatively intact over time, but a ridiculous one when applied to multiple teams, each of whom have differing ideas of what represents 1 story point of work and therefore work at differing velocities.

An Open Letter To Executives Leading Agile Transformations

Thanks to the Man from Mars, I saw this wonderful open letter written by Brian Irwin.  In it, he lists 10 pieces of advice for executives who are leading the introduction of Agile within their organization.  I think all of his points are excellent (and wish I'd seen them back in 2005 when we were preparing to go Agile at TV Works Canada) but I think two of them are especially important and relevant, based on what I've seen over the past 9 years:

5. Completely drop discussions of "resource allocation" and speak only of "team availability."

In my role as Agile consultant, I've repeatedly seen organizations make the mistake of believing that they can slice resources up into neat little sections, dedicating person A to project X at 30%, project Y at 30% and project Z at 40%, for example.  Despite all kinds of research showing the overwhelming cost to productivity imposed by multitasking, management types continue to behave as if resource allocations like that will somehow prove effective.  And even beyond that issue, there's also problems with team unity and priority-setting that are introduced when individuals are split over multiple fronts in that manner.

7. Give high praise for "complete" features only.

This point really speaks to me.  When I've gone into various organizations to do my Agile 101 training session, one of the course concepts that often meets with at least some resistance from both management and team members is the "done done done" principle that I preach.  This is the idea that there are only two % values that can be assigned to a feature: 0% and 100%.  I really try to drive home the point that saying a feature is "75% complete" is absolutely ludicrous, for the simple reason that you never know how much more work is involved until it's finished.  As an example of why this is true, consider how often the testing phase of a feature extends on and on and on, as more and more bugs are found as more and more fixes are made.  For that reason, at TV Works Canada we hit upon the notion of insisting that features be "done done done" (nothing at all left to do, not even documentation or last little tweaks) in order for that deliverable to be considered complete within the iteration.

Anyway, it's a very good article that I encourage anyone involved with Agile to read.   

Making Money Off Old Wounds

As of an ePub sale that happened this morning, my 3rd novel has now turned a profit!  It's always a nice feeling when I get to that point, as it means that that particular writing project will remain in the black from now on.  The only book of mine that hasn't done that is No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math, and that's only because I over-ordered on the initial print run, assuming that it would be more popular than the pre-orders had indicated (it hasn't been, so far).  Both AgileMan books and all three novels have now made money for Vicki and I, and I thank all of my readers and supporters out there for that happy fact!

Speaking of sales, there was another milestone passed this morning as No Brother of Mine became my top selling book, surpassing the first AgileMan volume.  Both of them have 'moved' well over 100 copies now, which I know isn't much compared to non-self-published projects, but I'll still take it.

Now I just need to get started on novel # 4, which I keep procrastinating on.  Bad Matt!

AgileMan Back On Campus Tomorrow

After missing my last opportunity to give an Agile lecture because I was too sick in November, I'm especially looking forward to tomorrow's talk.  I've trimmed the presentation quite a bit and added in some new material, which should make it fresher for the class's regular instructor and me, if nothing else.

I was hoping Emma might be able to attend, but she has a conflict this time around.  One of these days before she graduates I'll get her there...

Great Results In Toronto

I thought things went very well yesterday in the Agile 101 session I traveled to Toronto to lead, and the survey results from the attendees seem to bear that assessment out:

Effectiveness of presentation: 8.6 out of 10
Effectiveness of hands-on activity: 8.8 out of 10
Overall effectiveness as an intro to Agile: 9.2 out of 10

I had to drive through some pretty hairy weather to get there (on Tuesday night), but I guess it was worth it.

Off To Toronto For An Agile Workshop

I've got an Agile 101 workshop to do tomorrow in The Big Smoke, which is my first out-of-town Agile engagement in almost a year and a half.  The group I'm going to see is small enough (18 people) that Vicki's services aren't required, and so she's staying home to entertain the cats and do her own contract work.  That leaves me to deal with hotel logistics and meals, which is always a daunting prospect for me but I'll manage, somehow.

[Update later that same day: And now it's snowing like crazy, which should make the drive to Toronto... interesting, to say the least.  If this ends up being my last ever blog post, I'll be really pissed.]

You Know I'm Sick When...

Today I had to reschedule my semi-annual Agile lecture at the university.  It was supposed to go tomorrow, but my sore throat of the past two weeks has morphed into a chest cold + coughing if I talk much.  So now I'm slotted in for next Thursday at my alma mater, and hopefully all will be well by then... especially since we leave for Vegas not long after that!

Right now, though, I continue to feel like crap.

I'd Estimate That Went Pretty Well

Today's workshop on Relative Estimation, a topic I haven't covered in about 5 years, was actually a lot of fun. How do I know that? Well, I didn't get much sleep last night, thanks to a very scratchy throat over the past few days, and yet I still enjoyed the session immensely.

I could tell that the attendees started off a little unimpressed about having to spend a day in training, and visibly unconvinced about the snake oil I was apparently there to sell them on. They weren't rude about it, but the vibe in the room was pretty easy to read.

By the end of the day, though, most if not all of them were enthusiastic practioners of relative estimation, and excited to tell me how much they were looking forward to using their new skill. The results from my feedback form would seem to bear that out, as well:

Effectiveness of the presentation portion: 8.8 out of 10
Effectiveness of the hands-on activities: 9.6 out of 10
Overall effectiveness as an intro to the topic: 9.2 out of 10

Wow. Those may be the best results I've ever gotten. I'm quite sure the 9.6 (9.6!!) is the single best score I've received on the hands-on portion of any workshop I've led. I hope I get more opportunities to do this particular material, as it's clearly a big winner.

Off To Talk About Estimation Tomorrow

In what I consider to be a criminally perverse case of insane scheduling, I'm actually working tomorrow, just two business days after my last workday!  I know, right??

Actually, it's a good thing, as I'm finally going to get to talk about Relative Estimation.  When I do my Agile 101 workshop, it doesn't seem to matter who the audience is, they always want to drill way down into this topic when it comes up.  I have a grand total of 2 slides on it in the Agile 101 material but could easily spend a couple hours talking about it if I didn't put my foot down and insist that we move on.  I get so many questions, and receive so much skepticism about how it could ever possibly work, that I always end up saying, "You really ought to bring me back to do the full-day Estimation workshop if you're that interested, as that's the only way to do it justice."

And now I'll be doing exactly that.  Here's hoping I've still got the magic touch when it comes to Story Points and the rest of it...

Good Results From Another Agile 101 Session

Vicki and I did yet another Agile 101 workshop on Wednesday, and in the process received some of the best results yet on our 1-page feedback form that we hand out at the end:

Effectiveness of the presentation portion: 9.1 (out of 10)
Effectiveness of the hands-on activity: 8.7 (out of 10)
Overall effectiveness of the workshop as an intro to Agile: 8.9 (out of 10)

As usual, I was completely drained and brain-dead by the time we were done. Still, it's all worth it when the attendees are that satisfied with the day!

Comic Sans Font Gets No Love

I used it affectionately for the chapter titles of my AgileMan books, but apparently even the artist whose work inspired Microsoft's creation of the Comic Sans font, the great Dave Gibbons, has no love for it!

Nice Post On Agile And Why It Works

Many of the most commonly tossed around objections to Agile are covered off in this Forbes article, making it a very good read indeed.

Four Years Ago Today

It was four years ago today, on Thursday, July 10, 2008, that I endured my last bit of bullshit as a full-time employee. I left the office feeling miserable about what had happened to me at work that day, climbed on my bike to ride to my chiropractor appointment just before 5:00, and discovered, by the time I got there, that I'd actually decided to quit. Ironically, it was my future-friend Julie ("just" my chiropractor at the time) who learned about this dramatic turn of events before I'd even gotten home and could tell Vicki.

Of course it wasn't really just that one odious event that did it, but it did take a final straw being added on to break this particular camel's back. With the hindsight of four years, including knowing what transpired at that office in the years after I left, I'm happy to say that I've zero regrets about making that change. As Julie and I were talking about over the weekend, so many good things came out of that decision which likely wouldn't have happened if I'd kept working. My first two novels would certainly top that list, as I simply can't imagine having the peace of mind to write either of them had I still been caught up in the rat race over the past four years. Also up there would be the reconnecting with family members I've been doing, which has obviously been much easier to accomplish with the free time I'm now lucky enough to have.

So here's to four good years so far, and hopefully many more to come!

Today's Agile 101 Session Is History

Vicki and I were back in Agile Training mode today after a couple months off, as we did another Agile 101 session downtown. While it went well enough, it wasn't one of our best outings, as reflected by the feedback results we got at the end of the day (all out of 10):

• Presentation portion: 8.2
• Hands-on activity: 8.5
• Overall effectiveness: 8.3
  

Lately we've been getting higher marks than those, often with numbers up to and even over 9.0, but not today. I don't think I did anything particularly different this time, so I'm chalking these results up to a challenging group that harboured slightly more resistance to Agile than usual. As I'm always quick to point out, any results of 8.0 or higher are excellent to get on a training course. I just always like them to be a big more excellent, you know?

Anyway, that's the end of my scheduled Agile work for the foreseeable future. Wiuth the basement renovation almost done that means I'll soon be able to get back to my other job... writing that 3rd novel!

Another Agile 101 Session Is Behind Us

I did what must have been about my 6th or 7th Agile 101 session of 2012 today, and the last one I have scheduled (for now). It was definitely a challenging group this time, but most of them seemed to be fairly happy with the workshop by the end of the day, based on the feedback results:

Presentation portion: 8.6 out of 10
Hands-on activity: 8.9 out of 10
Overall effectiveness: 8.9 out of 10

Not quite up to the levels of the last session we did or possibly even the one before that (depending upon how you measure things), but still very good.

Agile 101 On 2 Hours Of Sleep

For whatever perverse reason, I woke up at 2:30 this morning, after having stayed up relatively late (12:30) specifically in the hope that perhaps that would improve my recent crappy sleeping record. Instead, I was wide awake for good a 'mere' 4 hours before the 6:30 alarm that was set to allow us to get downtown ahead of our 8:00 start. That's right: Vicki and I had yet another full-day Agile 101 session scheduled for today, and I ended up doing it on 2 hours of sleep.

Rather shockingly, this sleep-deprived performance received possibly the best survey results yet:

Presentation portion: 9.1 out of 10
Hands-on activity: 8.8 out of 10
Overall effectiveness: 9.2 out of 10

Those are insanely high scores, especially when you consider that a non-trivial percentage of the population typically doesn't give 10's out (on principle) when asked to rate something from 1 to 10.

Anyway, from this experience I've come to the conclusion that AgileMan's secret power has finally been revealed: I can do amazing feats on little or no sleep!

Back To School Again Tomorrow

Yes, it's time once again for my semi-annual Agile lecture for one of the local university's Computer Science courses. I think this is maybe my 8th or 9th time doing it, so you'd think I'd be good at it by now. Yeah, you'd think so...

Best Agile 101 Session Yet?

Yesterday, Vicki and I took part in our 7th Agile 101 workshop in the last 10 months. It certainly seemed to be going well while we were in it, but I always reserve judgment until I've seen the survey results from the attendees. I hand out a 1-page feedback form at the end of each session, asking those present to rate the 2 components of the workshop - presentation and hands-on activity - and then provide a rating for the course's overall effectiveness. The results this time around, all on a scale of 1 to 10, were:

Presentation - 8.4
Hands-on activity - 8.9
Overall effectiveness - 9.2

The 9.2 overall score matches the best we've ever received, which is certainly quite gratifying after a long day of being on my feet (as well as on my toes, when it comes to answering questions). I was saying to Vicki this morning how I remember taking courses through work, over the years, and how rare it was that people would come out of them with much in the way of enthusiasm. We'd often say things like "Well, that was a waste of a day, but at least I wasn't sitting at my desk" or "Parts of it were good but the presenter's style was sooo boring!" At the risk of sounding full of myself, I really can't ever recall a single work-related course where I believe the attendees would've given it anywhere close to a 9.2 out of 10. So I guess we must be doing something right!

Also, for those interested in this topic, I recommend this excellent article on "the Tao of Agile" which I think beautifully describes what's really required in order to succeed as an Agile organization.