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!

New Year’s Resolutions Suck

Some time around a couple of New Year’s Eves ago, I became happily resolved in my resolution that Resolutions suck. I mean, I don’t mean to offend either of you, Father Time and Baby With Sash, you guys have a good thing going. What better marker than (basically) the Winter Solstice to celebrate longer days and the fact we’ve made it through another Winter as a species (in the Northern Hemisphere… caipirinhas be chillin’ with Caipirinhas in Rio). High-fives all around, can’t wait for that harvest.

Survival worries aside, you two have built in a Natural Retrospective, although the focus seems to be on the Adaptive aspect. Dah boat a yews are off to a great start… we’ve got a good thing going here… but I’ve still got some beef (especially with you, Baby With Sash, sashes are so last… century). Why are you setting us up to fail?

This whole thing is well-intentioned – getting us to write lists that are then framed in our hearts to keep for the entire year to become better people. But from whatever cloud you’re sitting, sipping champagne and blowing bugles, you’re laughing at us as we go along with your cruel and unusual punishment. I’d like to meet somebody who has truthfully pulled off their list of New Year’s Resolutions – each one; they deserve a Nobel Prize in Discipline and/or Stubbornness. At least the folks doing Lent have a fighting chance since it’s a MUCH shorter time to keep some resolution. I’ll bet on those guys any day over some schmuck who says they really believe they can keep something up for a year.

So, gentlemen, allow me to submit a modification to the impractical prank you’re peddling while keeping the intent:

Give Resolutions a chance: shrink that time box down from a year to a fortnight.

And make them smaller, so that you could pull them off in two weeks. And make them clear, so that you know when you’re done.

Action Expresses Priorities

Was Mahatma Gandhi a ScrumMaster? The title of this post is a quote of his and it perfectly describes the Sprint Backlog – the set of things you’re doing now, which happen to be the highest priority things based on business value (personal value for ScrumOfOne).

And check this. He was a leader with great influence, in service of others, yet no managerial authority. This sounds a lot like a ScrumMaster. Hmm…

Good Enough

Hello, artist. You creator, you. Don’t consider yourself an artist? Well, are you making something? Then yep, that means you’re an artist! (Congratulations.) You are translating this THING in your head, this idea, into something you can see/hear/taste/smell/feel, and then you’re most likely getting others to see/hear/taste/smell/feel it, too: Creating and Connecting.

Don’t mind me. I don’t mean to interrupt. I just want to see/hear/taste/smell/feel this thing you’re up to. Wait, you WANT to show me? Awesome! Gee, thanks! So, to share this with me, you’ll have to stop creating. Not forever, I know, and you might not even be DONE, but in the continuum of its creation process, you are showing me one state.

This is a challenge to artists of all types: Is this thing done enough for me to share?

If we had infinite time, money, focus, and other resources, we’d want to make it perfect. PERFECT. So with that ideal in our heads, we keep going. We keep refining. We keep tweaking. We keep… going. We keep… not stopping so that we can ship. And this is bad. Hey, don’t look at me that way. Listen to Voltaire:

Dans ses écrits, un sàge Italien
Dit que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.

Essentially (from an Italian, yet in French): perfect is the enemy of the good.

Let me ask you a simple question. Do you know the future? Don’t lie, now. No? I didn’t think so. That’s OK, neither do I, and that’s the point. How do you know if this plan you have for this thing you’re making will really matter or create real value? How do you know if this thing in your head is really the best form for it to take?

People stink at planning. (What percentage of projects that you’ve been a part of have ended on time and on budget without continually updating the plan along the way to better match reality?) Scrum recognizes this poignantly human weakness and embraces it by espousing that we ship and ship often; at the end of each sprint, we have a potentially ‘shippable’ product.

At the end of each sprint, you have created a version you can share. For my earlier ScrumOfOne stories, they were ones I would share with… me: personal utility, whether it was more frequent use or a deeper use.

I started ScrumOfOne (talk about incrementally evolving THIS idea…) when I first moved into my current place. The floors were a mess, the bathroom sink was disgustingly clogged, and everything I owned was suddenly piled into my kitchen. Now what. You prioritize. The kitchen sink became a safe zone – I would shave there for a while, overlooking Mass. Ave. The toilet became lickably sterilized – my butt is high maintenance. The shower was scrubbed, but not gleaming white – baby, but solid steps for survival before living with some luxuries. The fridge doesn’t have to be wiped before populated with sustenance.

What type of artist was I then? I was desperate. I was crafting a livable space – for me – which was good enough (great for a time). And now, she and I are crafting this space for us – which is great (awesome going on awesomer).

First strive for Good Enough. Get to Great later.

You might find Good Enough IS Great, but that’s a Taoist revelation for another time…

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?