Author: Merrill III

All The Things In Two Minutes

Allow me to apply the wisdom of one article – How to Stop Procrastinating by James Clear – to ScrumOfOne, specifically the building of a Product Backlog. James recommends using the power of the ‘2-Minute Rule’, which has two parts. He starts the article with a reassuring introduction:

Most of the tasks that you procrastinate on aren’t actually difficult to do — you have the talent and skills to accomplish them — you just avoid starting them for one reason or another.

Part 1 – If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.

Think about the list of stuff on your to-do list / personal backlog… can some of them be banged out in a couple of minutes? For me, some of them actually can! Visualizing their realistic ability to be completed while an 800m sprint is taking place is motivating.

Part 2 – When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.

Alright, how about things that take longer than a footrace? Well, much like a footrace, it starts with risking your own beheading as you try to win the heart of the fastest female mortal in all the land the first step. It starts with… starting.

So, back to your backlog… can you start some of those items in a couple of minutes? For me, these larger items seem more manageable knowing that I can get some momentum with a time-boxed amount of focus.

I like this exercise (“Can I do this, or at least get started, in two minutes?“) when thinking about the size of stories, as a factor for determining points (as an estimate of effort). If a story is too large by this measure, might it be too large to drag into a Sprint?

So there: now you only have to focus and really work for two minutes! Momentum carries you the rest of the way, and the things on your Sprint Backlog just got easier. All the things.

How Not To Forgive Myself

Two guys walk into a bar. (Ooh, a joke…) One guy says, “Hey man, good to see you again.” (Alright, so this next part will be the funny part…) The other guy says, “Hey man, I don’t entirely want to be here.” (…well that was hardly worth a chuckle)

That’s what I actually said to him! Was that rude? (Oh, it’s not a joke, Merrill’s the second guy.)

At my Scrum Product Owner training session over three months ago, I met a Product Owner, started talking about my application of Scrum to Personal Development, heard how he was into using Scrum for Professional Development, and then took the conversation back up a couple of days ago. (A man-date?)

So when I told my buddy that I didn’t want to be there (“I was being a wicked rude jerk-face”), it was in the context of how I see a necessary level of forgiveness from the Product Owner in ScrumOfOne. In ‘regular’ Scrum, this is analogous to the practice of building a buffer into Sprints: a reservation of a part of the velocity for things the team or Product Owner decides to get done that arrive mid-Sprint. (You mean you can’t stick to a plan for a full Sprint?)

It’s because you can never plan what opportunities may arise or what fires may suddenly need putting out – and definitely not for a full Sprint. (Oh.) Thus, I almost NEVER fully follow through with what I set up at my ScrumOfOne Sprint Planning meeting. (And what, you beat yourself up for this?)

And I feel bad (oh) because I see these remaining Sprint Backlog items at the end of two weeks, staring me in the face from the glowing rectangle that lives in my pocket. (‘Glowing rectangle’, that’s funny.) This is what I brought up with my buddy. (Did you mention how you talk to yourself in your own blog posts?)

By me grabbing a drink with him, I’m NOT doing something I had already set up for myself. The forgiveness comes in if I ultimately believe that the activity I DO do (tee-hee) is effectively a story that gets me closer to some vision for myself. By chatting up somebody in the thick of promoting Scrum at corporations, I knew I would learn a tonne (the metric ton, good choice) about the various adoptions of the framework, and I think we were able to devise some concrete next steps for getting professional development underway where he is.

(I get it: doing the man-date meant you didn’t do stuff on your Sprint Backlog, but in the larger picture, it’s all good.)

So now here is my struggle: I want to replace the notions of forgiveness and anxiety over not accomplishing carefully prioritized stories towards building the product(s) of me, with the notion of judgement-free doing.

Yes, I’m trying to weave the Taoist concept of Wei Wu Wei (effortless action), or at least a consequence of this idea, into ScrumOfOne.

Suggestions?

(Yeah, he needs all the help he can get!)

You’re Allowed

Bill Watterson is the guy who did those Calvin and Hobbes comics. He gave a commencement speech to Kenyon College in 1990. From it is an excerpt that made it onto some webpage that then landed in my Facebook feed. I can’t find that page, but I think I found the excerpt:

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.

I especially like that last bit – establishing your own life’s path starts with giving yourself permission, sometimes permission to not climb the success ladder that’s such a sacred structure of our environment.

That awesome life you want starts with realizing… you’re allowed to live it.

Become A Superhero

Do you want to become a superhero?

Last week, at my favorite cafe on Newbury Street, I sat in on a talk by Dr. Robin S. Rosenberg, an author for the book, ‘What is a Superhero?‘. I liked the definition she discussed, which comprised of four parts.

1 – Be Super. You don’t need to be from out of this world, or have an ability that is beyond natural, but her criteria covers mortals with a capability on the upper tail of the bell curve of human knowledge & skills. I would argue it doesn’t have to be physical or strength-related. This is your super-power.

2 – Be a Hero. Do selfless acts. And not just once. I guess it’s a given that you primarily use your super-power while being selfless. Superheros are usually saving lives. Does that mean you have to save lives as well? More on that in a bit.

3 – Have an Alter Ego. If you’re going around not being normal (see Be Super, above), have an identity that embraces this, which might have to do with owning your new reality, psychologically. Think about how hikers of the Appalachian Trail take on different names.

4 – Have a Uniform. A costume, not necessarily all Spandex, extends the alter ego to being accepted by others, not just yourself.

What I find interesting about points 3 & 4 is that while, yes, you don’t need them to be effective (be a hero via your super-power), it allows you to be a normal human: mortal, fallible, someone who doodles when on the phone.

About saving lives… I asked the good doctor / author if this criteria for being a hero could be massaged to improving lives. She thought of a hero as one out to do good. Ha – selflessly do good. So, use your super-power to do good unto others.

Do you want to become a superhero?

Can you do something so well so as to be considered at the top of your ‘field’? This might be easier to accomplish if you can consider yourself at the top of your field, locally. Think of this super-power as your ‘gift’. This is you creating with your gift.

Can you selflessly do good by positively affecting other people? This might be easier to accomplish if you first think about affecting locally. This is you sharing your gift.

I believe we can all become superheros by creating and sharing our gifts.

Do you want to become a superhero?

Ask yourself: How can I use my gifts to do good?

Bust A Rut

One of the biggest things I got out of reading ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne was the idea of a Secret Shifter:

Secret Shifters, such as pleasant memories, nature, or your favorite music, can change your feelings and shift your frequency in an instant.

By frequency, she’s talking about the energy you give off to attract the things you really want. If you’re not into that ‘frequency’ and ‘law of attraction’ business, that’s cool. It’s actually not as simplistic as visualizing what you want, because you have to pair that with NOT focusing on what you DON’T want, since, per this game, you’ll just attract that into your life, too. It takes a little work, but that’s not what I wanted to get into. I want to talk about the ‘feeling good’ part.

Before I get into work, and after I leave work, and in the morning if I remember to, I cue up my Secret Shifter, my theme song, Thand101. It’s awesome, I love it. It kind of sounds like a galloping horse when fully orchestrated, and I’ll hum it to myself when I’m feeling awesome, like I’m radiating bad-assery, or I’ll hum it to myself, all morose and in more of a minor key than it already is, as a sympathetic back pat as if to say, “Cheer up, ol’ chap, chin up.” Yeah, that bit comes through in a British accent. Self-talk can get weird.

Martha Beck, life coach extraordinaire, has a version of this which is more involved: ask yourself what is your favorite thing to sense with each of your five senses, then ‘sense’ them. Man, that was a clumsy way to say it. Let’s try this:

Right now, what is your favorite thing to see?
What is your favorite taste?
What is your favorite smell?
What is your favorite touch sensation?
What is your favorite sound?
Now, see that thing, taste that taste, smell that favorite smell, feel yourself touching that favorite… touch, hear that sound. Fully immerse yourself in each of these sensations.

They won’t always make sense to… sense all at once, and that’s not the point. You’ll most likely smile, and you’ll take deeper breaths, and your shoulders will slump a little, and you’ll be more present and in your body – that’s the point.

As hustlin’ and bustlin’ humans in the first world, most of us reading this, myself included, we’re often focused on the future or the past, and not in the present. That’s a pretty broad and accusatory statement, so I invite you to analyze that for yourself: are you limiting yourself with regret (past-focused) or worry (future-focused)? One way to bring you back in the present is to then bring you back into your body (vs. your head), and what better way than by sensing. Sure, the fantasy of favorite senses isn’t real, but it uses what your body does to result in a smile.

So there you have it, folks. To bust a rut, immerse yourself in a Sensory Meditation or use a Secret Shifter. This stuff works for me, and yes, the language here can be a little ‘woo-woo’, sure, but we’re not talking about reconnecting with the greater consciousness of the universe (or are we…), we’re just talking about feeling better.