Category: tricia

Quirktastic or Corporate Bingo

Ever read a passage from an article on a lazy Sunday afternoon while sipping a cappuccino, and say, “Man, I totally gotta lift that and make that the basis of my next blog post?”

Nope, me neither.

I also remember watching my dad speak to everyone in the town square on the Fourth of July. He was up in this little white gazebo, and he was talking about the state of the city. He used the word “ain’t” at least a dozen times, so afterward I gave him the gift of feedback. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Are you really trying to help me get better or are you embarrassed?”

I said, “Honestly, a little bit of both.”

He said: “Son, this is who I am. And look out there. This is who they are. And if they can see me be imperfect and be the mayor, then one of them will aspire to be the mayor, too. People prefer their leaders with flaws because it makes these positions more attainable for the rest of us.“

Here, Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit, in an interview by Adam Bryant for yesterday’s ‘Corner Office’ column of the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times, talks about his parents. In the process, he talks about the benefits of appearing human when in a position of leadership. Sure, the mayorship appears more attainable, and I would argue that is because the mayor appears more relatable.

Ever listen to a public relations message or a corporate pep talk and it is littered with stuffy-sounding jargon? “At the end of the day”, “Productize”, “Quality Initiative”, “Deliverable”, “Going Forward”, “Opportunity For Improvement”, some buzzphrases sound self-aggrandizing, some of these come off as adding no value, some do both, and man do these really grind my gears. They are very effective at being incredibly impersonal. Don’t use them.

Be relatable.

Hell, I’m trying, but that’s because I’m really a robot.

A handsome, charming, Spanish, sword-fighting robot. Don’t tell my wife.

I Am A Millionaire (And So Can You!)

Folks, it happened. I am a millionaire. After 10,000 hours, I’m popping tags like the silly can holders.

Or at least… I live like a millionaire. On the daily, I swan dive into a multi-storey vault of Dogecoin a la Scrooge McDuck. Luckily, such riches have afforded me the necessary thick skin and equally necessary metallic Beyonce bouyancy to not get all cut up by or drown in said vault of said coin. (I got 99 problems, but tetanus ain’t one. (Hit me!))

So after my morning swim, after shimmying the moon dust off my shoulders, I get on with my day. And my days are pretty ordinary, except for the ‘living like a millionaire’ part. My vast wealth of cryptocurrency stays in that vault because I don’t need it to live like a millionaire. I already know how without all that.

“What?” you say, “Are you gettin’ all cheesy on me?” Naw, Pepper Jack, this is something that recently hit me like a tonne of feathers with a brick in the middle.

Fill in this sentence for yourself:

I live like a millionaire when I…

Here, let me help you out – this is just some of what’s on my list. I live like a millionaire when I:

  • play Candy Crush when I go to the bathroom.
  • beatbox in the shower.
  • rack my brain around Chinese Checkers.
  • commandeer a public piano.
  • crack a bad joke.
  • watch and hear my wife’s reaction to said bad joke.
  • walk around holding my wife’s hand.
  • say ‘wife’ whenever I can ’cause it still sounds foreign.
  • blare ‘And You and I’ by Yes before getting married.
  • jam to ‘Burn’ by Ellie Goulding as I walk out of work.
  • bask in ‘Express Yourself’ by Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band just about any other time of day.
  • whistle my theme song.
  • sit at my throne desk.
  • hang out at a cafe.
  • drink a cappuccino.
  • go on a date with a buddy.
  • make up a silly story.
  • tell the story behind my watch.
  • tell the story behind my pen.
  • tell the story behind my wedding band.
  • tell the story behind the number four on clocks.
  • tell the story of how I work for Taco Bell as a motivational speaker.
  • tell this joke: Did you hear about the Scottish cross-dresser? He wore pants.
  • watch and hear your reaction to that joke.

Sure, if I had some loose Hamiltons I’d build a community music studio and start a hovercraft polo league, but I’d also continue to do the above already awesome things. And of course, how I live like a millionaire will differ from how you live like a millionaire.

How do you live like a millionaire?

How can you live like a millionaire right now?

Hello – Is It Me I’m Looking For?

I can see it in my eyes.
I can see it in my smile.
I’m all I’ve ever wanted.
And –

…if we check out the System page of this blog, we see how this whole ScrumOfOne set of practices I’ve forged actually increases my Inner Peace.

Man does that sound awesome – I want me some of that existential goodness.

Sometime before the home settling, the wedding, the move, the move prep, and the wedding prep, I stopped being fully engaged in applying Scrum principles to my personal development. I had been working off of a Scrum-Lite process where, yes, I had a backlog, but it was to keep track of the things to which I was largely reacting. While the days were focused on mostly logistical issues, and rightfully so, what was missing was personal growth, and the accompanying Inner Peace.

Now that things have calmed down, with the state of the home being that folks have been able to stay over without being warned to mind the bear traps duffle bags and to watch out for that tree box, I’ve returned to putting things in a number of personal backlogs, prioritizing them, and siphoning off a few into the current sprint. And just the process of doing all that has felt grrrrreat! The relief has come less from knowing where I am going and more that I am not missing anything. I can’t get all the things done now, but they’re not forgotten, and the most important stuff is getting addressed. Very Scrum. What’s that tingling in my toes? Oh yeah. Inner Peace.

So I’m back on the bandwagon, and man do I not want to fall off and lose my growing Inner Peace… or… get dysentery.

Want more transparency? Fine. I thought it would be enough to tell y’all that I’m wicked pumped to be back in the game, but you’re egging me one… I’ll publish my velocity and the Kaizen story so y’all can learn along with me. There. You’re welcome.

The more important bits of Kaizen will fall into an improved System page – I’ll update that section to reflect what has been practical and repeatable.

First piece of Kaizen (for Sprint 141, which is the number of paychecks I’ve received, with a biweekly schedule that conveniently aligns with the sprintly schedule): Actually read the Sprint Backlog each morning. It’s simple, but this is the piece of adaptation that is independent, negotiable, valuable, ‘estimatable’ (such a clumsy word), specific, and testable that gets Scrummin’ back into my daily routine. And Inner Peace. Let’s not forget that.

Be Embarrassed or Look Up Cerulean Blue

This isn’t a post about how it’s OK if you suck.

Not even how it’s OK if you suck just at first at whatever you’re doing, or how it’s to be expected because you’re a newbie, or how you’re encouraged to suck because that’s how you improve.

Nope.

This is a post about how if you don’t share a creation that sucks, then you’re doing it wrong.

How ’bout them apples! I feel a sense of relief just thinking about it. Screw pride perfectionism! If it stinks to high heaven, then air it out!

This thought derives from a quote by Alberto Savoia from his GTAC 2011 Opening Keynote: Test is Dead.

If you are not embarrassed by your initial launch, you’ve not launched early enough.

The premise of his talk is on how there are two types of bugs: code bugs and idea bugs.

Bugs in code are what tests are supposed to find. If you press a button, the thing should turn cerulean blue. If you test the thing by pressing the button and the thing turns robin’s egg blue, then it was a good test ’cause it shed light on how the thing doesn’t meet the cerulean blue requirement. So then you Google ‘cerulean blue‘ ’cause, honestly, who could possibly know such mysterious corners of the rainbow except my wife, fix this bug, test it again, and the test passes.

Bugs in idea are what users end up finding. If you press the button, and the thing turns cerulean blue, and the intended user can no longer find the thing among the malachite green things because the target market is blue-green color blind, then it was a good exercise ’cause it shed light on how the cerulean blue requirement is a bad idea. So then you Google ‘tritanopia‘ ’cause, honestly, who could possibly know such blurred reductions of the rainbow except the internet (and optometrists, and opthamologists, and tritanopiacs…), fix this bug, give it to the user again, and this type of test passes with flying reds, cyans, blues, and byzantiums.

This colorful example highlights the Law of Failure:

Most product ideas fail in the market… even if they are very well implemented.

The first example highlights a bug in implementation, which, when fixed, represents progress, albeit in the wrong and ultimately embarrassing direction. The second example is preferred, enduring early embarrassment, ensuring the right and ultimately market-relevant direction. The idea bugs are more valuable than the code bugs and thus are the ones we want to catch early. Testing has historically focused on verification, “build the product right,” whereas focus is shifting towards validation, “build the right product.”

In the software world, this means distributing, early and often, a build to a small portion of the market for feedback.

In the personal world, this means sharing, early and often, a creation to a small portion of your fans for feedback.

Your first shared version should be embarrassing. Hmmm. OK.

Let The Wookie Win

Have you ever completed something? Of course you have.

Do you know how good that feels? Of course you do.

So it’s no surprise that painting the last big room in your new apartment, followed by closing out your storage unit such that everything you and your new wife own is now under one roof, followed by capping off Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ season all feels pretty freakin’ exhausting great! Everybody should get to feel this… more often!

So why don’t we?

At this point, I’m taken back to my Product Owner training, where (Scrum co-founder) Jeff Sutherland waxed poetic about… sports. So, with me please, imagine a sports team – your good ol’ neighbourhood generic sports team – it don’t matter what the sport is, just pick one – yes, any one, seriously – fine, curling – I picked curling for you – full-contact no-holds-barred curling.

Imagine that this team loses a match. Sucks, I know, but curling isn’t immune to losing. Think of what it’s like going into the next exciting match. Got it? Got that feeling? OK. Now imagine going into this next match, but having WON your previous bout. Got it? Got that feeling? Great – you’ve already visualized way more about curling than the average Canadian bear.

Gently slide curling aside for a moment, and apply these thought experiments to two completely different sporting and oxymoronic words: Scrum sprinting. By equating not finishing all the planned stories in a sprint to losing, and finishing all the planned stories in a sprint to winning, you get the feeling with which you go into the next sprint.

And it’s not just a feeling – there’s research to suggest that this kind of ‘failure’ prevents the team from improving, and that teams that finish early accelerate faster. Putting the ScrumOfOne hat back on, this means both not jam-packing your sprints with things to do, and preventing distractions from shifting your focus from getting things done.

Easier said than done? Well, I start with setting the bar lower, by setting myself up with fewer stories per sprint (the planned), and then leaving a buffer for things that come up (the unplanned). This is so common a tip in practicing Scrum that it is its own ‘pattern‘, where you can find more patterns here. These are ways to get started with Scrum and then get to Sutherland’s idyllic hyperproductive state. Interesting stuff, and it’s not too hard to see a ScrumOfOne corollary.