outside resource – Page 5

Tracking the Habit Avalanche

When building a habit, don’t miss two days in a row. I got this from the “Atomic Habits” book by James Clear:

The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

My daily habit is really a set of habits, with a few new small ones added every other week. Thus, I gradually build up a sustainable daily system of habits. I mark every day, on a “cafes of Boston & Cambridge” desk calendar my wife gave me in my Christmas stocking, in the following way:

Agile Habits

Google “Aristotle quotes”. Here’s the first one I see:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

(Oooh. Starting with philosophy. Dorky. I like it.)

In his book “Atomic Habits“, James Clear builds off of this notion. Habits are those actions we take without trying – they’re automatic. The reason they’re automatic is we have found value in making them automatic – we either do them very frequently, or we have practiced them a lot. The benefit of automating them is so that we save brain energy to think through things that are novel, or things that matter, instead of things we do with a high enough frequency, like brush teeth before bed, or wash hands after coming back home, or wiping our sword on the grass before putting it away after the weekly field battle for the Hill of Arowyn with the neighbouring tribe.

(Oooh. An attempt at a Welsh word. Gaelic. I like it.)

Introducing a Frontlog: Experiments in Process

Here’s an SAT-style analogy for ya, partially because I like wordplay, partially because I value effort over outcome, partially because I like Simon Sinek, and partially because I dislike New Year’s Resolutions.

Backlog : Product Experiments (the what) ::
Frontlog : Process Experiments (the how) ::
Forelog : Vision Experiments (the why)

This isn’t the best analogy, since ‘the how’ per Sinek’s Golden Circle is more akin to ‘principles’, but this’ll work well enough. Continue reading Introducing a Frontlog: Experiments in Process

What is Value?

“What is value?” A boss once asked this, and an answer that I’ve run across that I’m drawn to is, “Value is change in behaviour,” where I would modify to the following:

Value is sustained change in behaviour.

I recently finished reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, wherein he draws a connection between Aristotle, who’s credited with “We are what we frequently do”, and his thesis, where habits are, uhhh, what we frequently do 🙂 , so… Continue reading What is Value?

A High Bar for Product Culture

My daughter is in the phase where she’s always asking me “why?”, so she asks me, “Why do you go to work?” …and I hate how a toddler has given me so much pause… because I don’t like my answer.

Here’s a window into an internal struggle:

Do you work for a company with an inspiring vision? Why the heck not? And why do you choose to spend your days contributing to a group that’s not improving humanity?

And now, here’s my struggle as I iterate on my Agility:

Why continue to focus on how things are being built & done when what we are building & doing is not improving humanity?

What do I tell my 2-year-old daughter? Continue reading A High Bar for Product Culture