That First Tiny Step

You have a dream. OK! Fine! You have a few dreams, but let’s pick just one. What’s it like? What are… the symptoms?

Hello, America. Do you suffer from something that is any or all of the following?

Well then, America, you have a dream!

Scrum is great for breaking down an epic-sized, daunting thing into a story-sized, conquerable thing, and then openly managing that. The ScrumMaster in me would sit you down, and after 5 seconds stand back up and walk with you to a whiteboard, since those are fun, then help you construct a Product Backlog based on your vision, prioritize that list, then draw a line in the sand on the whiteboard and bellow, “Behold, O America, for the next fortnight, sallyeth thee forth and kick ass,” while pointing to the stuff above that line.

Now, America, I do look forward to our date over Spanish lattes to bust through this in a fun-filled manner, sallyething thee forth ‘n’ all, but until then, ask yourself: What is that first tiny step towards my condition dream? What’ll get me that tiniest bit closer? What takes almost no time and no effort, yet dips my toe in the water?

This’ll of course depend on the disease dream. For me, that first tiny step was purchasing the following KORG Kaoss Pad 3.

Schuper Schweet, I know. How does this affect my dream?

  • It is still large – that’s how they tend to be.
  • It is not as far away, I just brought it closer.
  • It is clearer, since I have a tool with which to work.
  • It is still exciting – that’s how they tend to be.
  • It is less out of my league and more in my gym bag next to my desk in my apartment.
  • It is still possibly too awesome, and I’m getting a better handle of it, since this one piece fits in my hands.

Sallyeth thee forth and kick ass – take that first tiny step.

Visualizing Via Pinterest

Crap, I’m addicted. I mean, I was addicted, but only for the whole evening yesterday.

Pinterest is a site to post linked pictures, organized by ‘boards’. Simple. It’s popular enough that when you’re reading an article that features a picture, right next to those buttons where you can Tweet it or Facebook it (that’s a verb now?) or Google Plus it (Google add it?), you can now Pin it to a board of yours.

What’s so (P)interesting about this?

I now have suit coats because I wandered in Marshall’s and knew what to look for. I knew what to look for because between Sprints (during my Sprint Planning), I read over all of my Product Backlog. Sure, this takes a few minutes, but it’s worth it – it reminds me of the person I want to be via clear (and Independent and Negotiable and Valuable and ‘Estimatable’ and Small and Testable) stories to get there. One of those stories for an awesome me was amassing a collection of suit coats. This wish comes from what I think is a better version of “Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.”

Dress as the man that I want to be.

And how did this get onto my Product Backlog / master-list-of-what-makes-up-a-future-and-awesome-Merrill? I sat and thought, like Pooh Bear, and wrote it down. I visualized and wrote it down. What does Pinterest give me? A way to visualize (and find online or snap a pic of something) and pin it up. It’s a vision board. ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne covers this, where you work with The Law of Attraction to bring to you what you want, which only really works with some deliberate measure if you know what you want.

So, in the Scrum spirit of things, I’ll be transparent (shameless?) and share my Pinterest boards, so you can see how I use them as vision boards:

http://pinterest.com/mblamont3

Happy pinning!

Don’t Label Me, Bro

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, and all the ships at sea, I present to you a classic. This quote is legen – wait for it –

We are what we frequently do. – Aristotle

DARY! How do you like them apples? This is a favorite of mine ’cause I come back to it when I find myself doing a lot of something I later somewhat regret (plowing through episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’), or when I find myself saying I’m something that I don’t think I am (as a Biomedical Engineer, I’m not researching commercially available tissue engineered skin equivalents, I’m testing medical devices), or when I find myself saying I’m something I later realize I actually am (I’m a blogger? I’m guess I’m right…).

It starts harmlessly. You meet a friend of a friend, or start chatting up your neighbor at the cafe counter. Eventually, “Hey man, so what do you do?” blurts out. You answer the question by sharing your day job (or lying) and possibly your hobbies or whatever you do in your down-time.

It ends harmfully. Stop right there. Take a step back. Listen to yourself answering that question. Those things you just said that you do? You are those things.

Picture it this way. Take those things, turn them into job-title-looking nouns, and then list them, comma-separated, below your name on your imaginary business card. You now have a few words associated with your name, letterally supporting your nominal identification. It’s one thing to think about the things you do each day and each week, but to take those same things and turn them into labels for yourself is like transforming the question, “What did you do Wednesday night?” into, “What kind of animal are you?”

After another look at those words below your name on your imaginary business card, how do they make you feel? Do you like them? Do you want them associated with your name? I mention labels, and I hear an instant backlash of, “You don’t KNOW me! I can’t be pigeon-holed into neat categories! I’m more complex than that! I’m more than that!” I’m sure you are. I’m sure you’re a great listener, a loyal friend, a fun-loving step-ish-mother to your fiance’s kid who you see every other weekend. But would you say you do those things with high frequency? Would you seriously say you are those things if you met somebody? Is that how you want to be remembered (besides smelling nice – it’s Vetiver by Givency)?

Those few words… if you don’t like any of ’em, what would you rather they be? Have an idea? I guess you better do that with some frequency. I’ll be honest, it’s harsher for me to read this than it is to write this. So now that I’ve found a life vector I’m happy with, I’ve refined my ‘product’ vision, written up ScrumOfOne stories that I’m getting done, and am focusing on the following platitude, which I’m taking on as more of a platypus an attitude:

Do more and more of fewer things, but more important things, and get better and better at each of them.

Those few words… how do you like yours?

How do you like them apples?

Personal Overhead

This is the post where I share my ScrumOfOne existential doubts.

Do I doubt this whole “Using Scrum for Personal Development” idea? Yes I do, yet I think it’s somewhat healthy. It is very encouraging that Scrum encourages critical thinking by building in a time to be retrospective and thus adapt: choose to amend the set of processes I’m imposing upon myself, which includes killing off all that overhead altogether! There is a question from ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ by Timothy Ferriss that fits this all too well:

Am I being productive or just active?

Rephrase:

Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?”

I’ll admit that I feel this ScrumOfOne idea is kinda my baby; I really like the idea and have found it key to managing how I purposefully get things done. So that I can analyze if these ‘Scrummy’ practices are a good return on investment, I have turned to these existential questions from ‘Rework’ by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson:

Why are you doing this?
Is this actually useful?
Will this change behavior?
What could you be doing instead?
What problem are you solving?
Are you adding value?
Is there an easier way?
Is it really worth it?

Man, those questions are straight-up down-right (left hook?) harsh! And I like ’em. A lot. They bleed with the spirit of Getting Real. I had huge plans: waking up at 5:31am to step through the three questions (I even convinced a buddy to be a part of this pre-dawn Scrum), stepping through and documenting a formal Retrospective, writing a PERL script to manage a text-based Product Backlog, reading weekly a set of quotes & phrases & book notes I’ve collected over the years as my personal set of Psalms. These weren’t just plans… I actually did them for a while!

So do I still do all this? Hellz no! These ceremonies were just not sustainable for the long term. My commute schedule changed, so 5:31am turned into an ungodly hour to be awake, although I still have the 531am.com domain name. My Retrospective currently covers what happened over the past two weeks, how process adaptations fared, and what process tweaks to adopt. My Product Backlog is a Google Doc with the Sprint Backlog at the very top – a text editor in the cloud suffices. My hours-long re-centering read now happens monthly. I pared down the personal overhead to manageable levels based on fruitful returns.

Sure, ScrumOfOne takes discipline, which connotes a struggle, though what I’ve found as I’ve been massaging this system of processes is you can change the nature of the motivation when you see the fruits of your labor. The morning stand-up has turned into 15 minutes of alignment, mental prep, and a generally feel-good start to my day. It’s a trigger to personal finance documenting, reading a few fruity-sounding affirmations, and walking into the day with a purpose. When I do this, I literally walk differently. (I do!) This whole Scrum business is just that transforming.

Thus the system continues, yet only because it started with a habit: a small step: the seed of a fruit I hoped would work out. Upon processes that proved their own worth, I added, modified, and removed (…mostly removed) as I evolved this personal overhead, like trimming a fruit tree.

Alright. Seriously. What’s up with all the fruit in this post? I think I’ll grab a pear…

Hide And Seek

Ever play ‘Hide and Seek’? At work? Try it some time – it’s what the cool (and productive) kids are doing.

The idea of a Sprint, a block of time to do stuff, is simple. And there’s magic in the web of it.

It is magic in that it protects a constant while still embracing change. Before a sprint, you set up what you will do for that duration – this list is called a Sprint Backlog. Once you enter the sprint, this magic box of time (I do two weeks), your Sprint Backlog is shielded from the weather. It might be calm and sunny, where you’re not really pressured to deviate from the plan. Other days, you might be in the middle of a crazy sand storm & hail front, where you’ve got what feel like forces of nature vying for your attention. Regardless, unless it is something catastrophic, Scrum espouses that you stick with implementing the Backlog for that Sprint; changes in priority and direction are handled in the Product Backlog (the larger list of things to do), which is then addressed in between Sprints. This allows you to get stuff done and not be affected by emergent distractions, usually changes in direction. Simple, yes no?

This is a strategic modus operandi. Let’s adapt this thinking to the realm of the tactical.

In the corporate environment (ah, cube land), you’ve got meetings, folks walking by and chatting, and guys flying stunt maneuvers with their (awesome, yet annoying) toy helicopters. These are distractions. Sometimes, they’re welcomed. Other times, when you’re in the zone or earnestly trying to get stuff done, they suck, and the DJ Tiesto-grade headphones that you bought for yourself as a Christmas present blasting progressive house don’t drown out the high-pitched whirring of spinning blades. Let’s apply some of the magic from Sprints and lessen the suckage:

Play Hide and Seek – block out time, space, and attention.

Block out time: Go into MS Outlook. Got a couple of hours that you would like uninterrupted? Create a meeting with one mandatory attendant – you! (awww…) Now when others are setting up a meeting that includes you, they’ll look at other available times, or think they’re super-important and double-book you while apologizing. (booo…)

Block out space: Go to a conference room. Hide. Wouldn’t it be cool if they made grown-up versions of Study Hall? It’s a sacred place where work gets done. Phones and pagers are silenced.

Block out attention: Turn off instant messaging. Turn off email. Do you really need to know the second you get an email via a pop-up in the lower-right corner of your screen?

Got any similar tactical tools you’d like to share?