Eventyr

Leadership Issues Reading

Leadership issues reading.  (Perhaps something for the coming weekend.)

Leadership Reading List (From the Scrum Alliance)

Project Management and Scrum – A Side by Side Comparison

Process Facilitator Mission

Here is a possible "mission statement" or definition for the Process Facilitator:
    "The Process Facilitator is a person who is both experienced with Agile Work and trained as a facilitator. The Process Facilitator acts as a coach to the team to monitor the process, foster the understanding of the Agile Work Axioms, the development of the Agile Work Disciplines and adherence to the Agile Work practices. The goal of the Process Facilitator is to assist a team to become "performing" so that they are able to actively and independently persue continuous learning and improvement."

Process Facilitator Role

Unhappy Meals

It was in the 1980s that food began disappearing from the American supermarket, gradually to be replaced by “nutrients,” which are not the same thing. Where once the familiar names of recognizable comestibles — things like eggs or breakfast cereal or cookies — claimed pride of place on the brightly colored packages crowding the aisles, now new terms like “fiber” and “cholesterol” and “saturated fat” rose to large-type prominence. More important than mere foods, the presence or absence of these invisible substances was now generally believed to confer health benefits on their eaters. Foods by comparison were coarse, old-fashioned and decidedly unscientific things — who could say what was in them, really? But nutrients — those chemical compounds and minerals in foods that nutritionists have deemed important to health — gleamed with the promise of scientific certainty; eat more of the right ones, fewer of the wrong, and you would live longer and avoid chronic diseases.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Agile Reading

More reading for me. 

The long list of Agile Advice Recommended Materials

The New Agile Roadmap

Stand-Ups

The daily stand-up meeting (also known as a "daily scrum", a "daily huddle", a "morning roll-call", etc.) is simple to describe: the whole team meets every day for a quick status update.  We stand up to keep the meeting short.  That's it.  But this short definition does not really tell you the subtle details that distinguish a good stand-up from a bad one.

Given the apparent simplicity of stand-ups, I was quite surprised the first time I saw one that wasn't working. It was immediately obvious to me what was wrong but I realised that it was not obvious to the team. I realised that my team was not aware  of the underlying principles and details that would allowed them to diagnose and solve problems with stand-ups.

...

We stand up to keep the meeting short

The underlying theme is self-organisation

What is the purpose of the daily stand-up meeting?

• share commitment
• communicate daily status, progress, and plans to the team and any observers
• identify obstacles so that the team can take steps to remove them
• set direction and focus
• build a team

Effective daily stand-ups have a particular feel

Patterns of daily stand-up meetings

Who attends the daily stand-up?

• All Hands
• Pig and Chickens
• Attend by Proxy

What do we talk about during the daily stand-up?

• Yesterday Today Obstacles
• Focus on the Backlog
• Blockage Board

When and where are the daily stand-ups held?

• Same Place, Same Time
• Use the Stand-up to Start The Day
• Don't Use the Stand-up to Start the Day

How do we keep up the energy level of the daily stand-up?

• Huddle
• Stand Up
• Fifteen Minutes or Less
• Signal the End
• Time the Meetings
• Take It Offline

How do we encourage self-managing daily stand-ups?

• Last Arrival Speaks First
• Round Robin
• Pass the Token
• Take a Card
• Rotate the Facilitator
• Break Eye Contact

Smells are about when things are going wrong

• Reporting to the Leader
• People are Late
• Stand-up Meeting Starts the Day... Late
• Observers Interrupt
• Socialising
• I Can't Remember
• Story Telling
• Problem Solving
• Low Energy
• Obstacles are not Raised
• Obstacles are not Removed
• Obstacles are Only Raised in the Stand-up

If the feel is good, you're probably okay 

It's Not Just Standing Up: Patterns of Daily Stand-up Meetings

Lava Lamp Feedback

I was given a usb lava lamp for Christmas.  When I have my Easter holiday, I may need to look into these instructions for converting mini lava lamps into build monitors.  Sadly I know I am terrible with this kind of thing, but may be worth a play anyway.

Stressful Living

I’ve compiled a short list of ideas for those who wish to add a dash of stress into their lives — all fairly easy to implement, not to mention widely encouraged by society at large and often easily observed in the behavior of those around you.
...
1. Attempt to control absolutely everything
2. Believe in the possibility of ‘making it’
3. Look for satisfaction out there
4. Emphasize yourself
5. Be more and have more
...
At the core, all of the above ideas can be summed up in a single method: simply convince yourself that you need more than you have at any given moment, and you will be able to maintain a steady feeling of anxiety throughout the day. This can be a feeling of needing to become more than you already are, or needing to have more than you have now (which are actually one and the same), and can be felt more generally as a perpetual sense of lack.

5 Ideas for Stressful Living (via LinkMachineGo)

Song Non-Choice

Songs that didn't make it onto any of recent public playlists...

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Jonathan Coulton:

Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very dilligent
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login page himself
Code Monkey

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Jason Webley:

It's raining leprosy and acid.
The saints were taken out and shot.
When someone proffers you a pear,
You sink your teeth in unaware,
That just beneath the skin lies pestilence and rot.
Dance While the Sky Crashes Down

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and, obviously, the Tiger Lillies.

Experience Paper Experience

As part of my drive to finally take a trip out of Europe I have submitted an Experience Report (in conjunction with FP) to Agile 2007*.  I will also submit research in progress papers for my research and for Agile Narratives. 

If I coincide this with my student volunteering there, it should prove a wonderful experience at fairly low cost to me.  It reminds me that the long hours really are worth it.

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* Which also nicely coincides with Burning Man. 

Contracting

It has been pointed out to me more than once now that I could be making money from what I do.  As a poor student I admit this is appealing...

I am looking into options.  More on this soon.