Back in December, the PMI Agile Community of Practice (CoP) leadership agreed we’d take steps to provide some transparency into what we are doing. If you are curious about what we’re up to, I invite you to follow the link below.
Here is the link to our board. https://pmiagilecop.
Anyone can access this Kanban (read only):
Username: AgileCOP@gmail.com
Password: GoAgile
What do you think? Is this enough transparency?
Image Source: Pictofigo
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I would like to publicly thank everyone who sent me birthday wishes. Gotta love Facebook, Google+ and all of the other places that broadcast your birthday to the world. It’s actually pretty cool to hear from people I haven’t talked to in a while. Rather than go into details about how I ate durian fruit or how I was convinced my wife hired a belly dancer for our dinner date with friends, I’ll focus on the good stuff.
Not only did I score several containers of coffee, but I also got a physical copy of Personal Kanban from my parents. I have Jim and Tonianne’s Kindle version of Personal Kanban but sometimes when you really like something, you just have to have a physical copy. I honestly didn’t think I was that sentimental.
My son and I also got matching white boards to help us navigate our lives. So, if you’re thinking of a stocking stuffer this year, get that special person a copy of Personal Kanban and some post-its. They’ll be glad you did.
Oh, and if you look in the background of the photo, you’ll see my wife has LeanKit Kanban up on her screen. Ya, we’re a weird family.
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When the Agile Manifesto for Agile Software Development was written 10 years ago, it stated “We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it.”
The very first of four values listed within the Manifesto was “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”
The Manifesto goes on to state “…while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.”
Well, I am compelled to write about one of the items on the right. I still believe the tool should be good enough that it helps you reach your goals. But after that, it should not become a big process onto itself. What I want to do is finish tasks and get some actual closure on them.
I recently read in the book Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry, a phenomenon known as the “Zeigarnik Effect”. It states that 90% of people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnic found that the human brain becomes preoccupied with things that are not closed.
Though I have leveraged Kanban with teams, it took me a while to realize that Visual Control Systems could be used to visualize and manage both personal and professional work. I then found myself using a physical board at the office and an electronic version (web-based tool) at home.
What is visual control, exactly?
A visual control is a technique employed in many places where information is communicated by using visual signals instead of texts or other written instructions. The design is deliberate in allowing quick recognition of the information being communicated, in order to increase efficiency and clarity.
The real question is, can a process tool take the place of individuals and interactions? Perhaps we need to stop and think about the reality of our world. Is everyone in your company physically located in the same office space or are you geographically dispersed? If you’re not all sitting there together in an open workspace, you need to find a tool that will bridge that physical gap and then stay out of the way. Bandit Software’s LeanKit Kanban does that. Let me tell you what puts LeanKit in the lead of the Kanban tool race. It’s called mobile computing.
I seem to carry my iPad with me everywhere. (I’ll be getting an iPhone as soon as my contract is up). Though the LeanKit iPhone/iPod interface could use a little work, the iPad interface is completely awesome. The image above is actually a screen print from my iPad. The design is simple; it’s lightweight; it’s functional. It helps me visualize my work and it helps control my work in process. Merge LeanKit Kanban and an iPad and you will have an amazing user experience, as it allows individuals to interact wherever they see fit. I’m happy because I can access half a dozen different boards with tap of my finger and my wife is happy because I didn’t cover the walls of my home office with whiteboards and sticky notes.
If you’re thinking about using a web-based Kanban tool for yourself, your team, or your organization, all of the vendors out there have relatively similar features. See which one fits your budget. If you or your teams are using mobile devices like iPhones, iPods, or iPads (in addition to desktops or laptops), you need to go to iTunes and download this app. Though you need to have an existing LeanKit account to make the Apple App versions work, you can get a personal account for free!
After you see how well it works for your personal life, I don’t doubt you’ll be using it in the office in the not-too-distant future.
HT: Wikipedia
HT: LeanKit
HT: Personal Kanban
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I was sitting at my desk when this song by the Black Eyed Peas called “I got a feeling” came on Pandora. My son rushed over yelling to turn it up. I attribute turning up the volume to the resulting earworm that has lasted the last few days. There could be worse things in the world. Each time I hear it, I think of the flash mob that danced in Chicago for Oprah. It amazes me how so many (strangers) came together to create something that brings a smile to my face every time I see the video.
As I was preparing for day zero for LitheSpeed (I don’t officially start until tomorrow), I found myself singing the song and thinking about “the feeling”. After taking a week off, I was able to break the cycle that had me feeling a bit numb for so long. Just a few weeks ago, I felt like I was trying to keep control of an uncontrollable situation. That can become exhausting. But today I felt completely different. This morning I felt excited about what I was about to do. I felt an entrepreneurial drive I haven’t felt for a long time. It’s that feeling when you play offense not defense.
Tomorrow is day one. I have my Kanban loaded. I have my WIP limited. I got a feelin’ tomorrow is gonna be a good day. Let’s do it.
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I had dinner with a colleague the other night. I inadvertently quoted something verbatim from Dan Pink’s book, Drive. My colleague said if I liked Dan Pink’s work, I should read something from Dan Ariely. So, I started on Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. Wow, this book is crazy! I’m not going to go into any more details in the post other than a comparison of an experiment detailed in the book and something I’ve seen in the real world.
In the book, the author described an experiment on 34 Halloween trick-or-treaters. As soon as the children knocked on the door, they received 3 Hershey’s (each weighing about 0.16 oz.) and were asked to hold the Hershey’s they had just received in their open hand in front of them. Each child was then offered a choice between a small (1 oz.) and a large (2 oz.) Snickers bar, under a Cost Condition and under a Free Condition. In the Free Condition, they could simply get the small 1 oz. Snickers bar (for free) without giving up anything or they could exchange 1 of their 3 Hershey’s for the 1 large Snickers bar. In the Cost Condition, the children could exchange 1 of their .16 oz. Hershey’s for the small (1 oz.) Snickers bar or exchange 2 Hersheys for the large (2 oz.) Snickers bar. They could also choose to do nothing but all of the kids chose to make an exchange.
In the Free Condition, in which the small Snickers bar is free, demand for it increases substantially (relative to the Cost Condition). The results demonstrate the attractiveness of zero cost. People gravitate more toward options that do not require giving up anything.
At work, I’ve had a Product Owner (PO) who wanted to add items from the Backlog to the Sprint. During sprint planning, the team basically added a buffer, to account for unforeseen events. I know people are going to crucify me for this, but basically, the Product Owner always seemed to want to shift priorities of work mid-Sprint. Rather than killing the Sprint, we added a buffer. This would allow new work to be entertained without totally derailing the work already being completed. Yes, we could have used Kanban and all of this could have been avoided. But, Kanban wasn’t an option.
So, what happened? I offered the PO a deal. I could allow him to add a certain amount of work to the Sprint for free. When I did this, he usually asked for smaller deliverables (relative to other items on the backlog that were ready to work). But, when I said some work would have to come off the table to pay for the new work, he always went big. He would choose larger deliverables relative to other items on the backlog that were ready to work.
All I can say is we truly are predictably irrational.
Yes, the links to the books are affiliate links.
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