You’re not a real Agile Coach unless You’ve Coached Yourself

Or, to bastardize a quote attributed to Gandhi:

Be the Agile Coach you want to see in the world.

And you can start being that person at home. Right now.

Think about it… If you were hiring a coder, wouldn’t you want someone who codes in their free time, contributing to open source projects, or is otherwise experimenting on their own? If you were hiring a network engineer, wouldn’t you prefer someone who has set up a LAN in their basement, or is otherwise experimenting on their own? Why wouldn’t this apply to hiring a Scrum Master or Agile Coach? If you were hiring one of these kinds of cool cats, wouldn’t you rather have someone who geeks out on this topic at home, or is otherwise experimenting on their own?

Regardless of the skill or domain, finding ways to experiment on your own means:

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It’s Like Personal Tech Debt

In the course of daily events, I may not clear my inbox by the end of the day (or week), I may write notes in a few places (instead of one), and I may allow stuff to pile up on my desk (starting with the edges, slowly creeping towards the middle).

It’s not really in my way… it’s not impeding me, per se, from getting stuff done on the daily, but over time, it builds up past some threshold of, “OK. Now this shit is encroaching on my physical & psychological comfort.”

This amassed entropy? It’s like personal tech debt.

Right? I mean, that’s how I think about it. I’ve never coded for a living, but this analogy seems fair.

OK. Fine. Let’s see what Wikipedia says…

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Notes on Vision

I have a product framework based on a great book on roadmaps, folding in a few standard key ideas like having a vision. Personally, I like having a few versions of the same vision, adding granularity to represent deeper understanding & appreciation, to then aid different levels of daily decisioning decision-making.

Here’s the really dorky part. As “Merrill the Third”, I’ve grown up drawn to the number 3, and lately, thirds. Applying this odd proclivity (self-five!) to visioning crafting vision(s), I aim for lengths of about a minute, and a third of a minute (20 seconds), and a third of a third of a minute (~6 seconds), and a third of a third of a third of a minute (~2 seconds) (one over: three to the power of three – another self-five!).

So here are my notes on Vision.

Much like my notes on Minimalism & Product, these are not my most complete ideas (nor my most current… these are about 6 years old, a lifetime ago), but they resonate with me enough such that I look back on ’em from time to time, and figured I’d share ’em with you.

You’re welcome.

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My Approach to Getting Refining Sessions Unstuck

What do you do when half the people think it’s 3 points, and the other half think it’s 5?

(Ooh, don’t share any more context – leave it there and just keep going!)

That’s going to happen. If I’m facilitating this Refining Session, I’ll ask one person who scored it a 3 to explain why, and then I’ll ask the same from somebody who gave it a 5.

(Aww, you explained the scenario… you could’ve let ’em writhe! You’re no fun…)

I’ll restart a vote, and hopefully this discussion has swayed folks to vote more similarly. But let’s say it hasn’t. Let’s say y’still have a roughly 50/50 split between the same two adjacent Fibonacci numbers. Fine. I then ask about the Fibonacci numbers on either side of those scores.

I ask everybody, “Could this be a 2?” then pause for their responses. I then ask, “Could this be an 8?” also pausing for their responses. What I’m looking for is not just what is said, but more importantly how it’s communicated. This what/how split neatly echoes a content/style split for you HTML/CSS folks, and a product/process split for weird Agilists like me. I lean on the greater emotional response to resolve this difference of opinion in the group.

So, if folks say half-heartedly, “Yeah, I guess,” when asked it’s a 2, but when asked about an 8, they say with some energy, “Naw, it ain’t THAT big… it’s not like the other 8s!” then I hear more emotion away from 8, thus between 3 & 5, I recommend a 3.

Similarly, if folks are energetically ‘meh’ about a 2, but all, “well, yeah, it could be a lot of work, it could blow up,” while nodding their heads a bit more about the prospect of it being an 8, then I hear more emotion towards an 8, thus between 3 & 5, I recommend a 5.

I then explain:

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