Creative Sparks

They are everywhere!  Right now, near you, is another person.  That person cares about something, cares enough that they could talk about it with enthusiasm, energy and sparks!  And even if you didn’t really care about the subject, their enthusiasm just might rub off on you.

One of the things that helps create a high performing team is diversity of opinion, personal culture and points of view.  Make sure you help team members give each other the gift of passion.  Hold learning events to present about hobbies.  Ask for book reviews or presentations on some new technology.  Heck, go bowling.  Do things that expose your people to new ideas.  One day those “unrelated” creative sparks will trigger your next market-winning innovation!

Check out more inspiring presentations at the Ignite Phoenix YouTube Channel.  What will they inspire you and your team to do?

My Mentors

• Don Dayley, my father – Taught me all the foundational things in life, including how to mow the lawn when I did not want to, sometimes through uncomfortable methods.  He also gave me an unsurpased example of attention to craftsmanship.  Everything he builds or repairs is better than new when he is done.
• Mrs. Fedler, 4th grade teacher – I found most of my first three years of public school boring.  Mrs. Fedler found ways to show me that learning itself was fascinating.  And she showed me that exploring the boundaries beyond expectations was praise worthy.
• Mr. Douglas, 11th grade chemistry – THE hardest teacher I ever had, including college.  The scientific method, analysis, reporting, supporting conclusions based on facts and failing with good humor are among the things he taught me.  Ask me why he sometimes called me “Beaker.”
• Pedro Brassinini – Taught me to love strangers more than I ever dreamed possible and to feel compassion deeper than I had known.  And how self-sacrifice brings inner rewards.
• Bill Sheppard – My first engineering boss was hard and understanding with me, a green engineering student.  He showed me that trust is part of doing my work well.
• Kevin Kilzer – A brilliant engineer of software and hardware.  He harnesses passion for the work like no other coworker in my experience.  Creativity fueled by inner fire is awesome.
• Mike Vizdos – A guide over the years of my journey into the Agile and Scrum world.  Quiet thought is a powerful tool, which he knows and shows how to use in all his work.
• The Ignite Phoenix Team have shown me Agile collaboration skills and community building prowess that I hope rubs off on me.  (Don’t tell them they are Agile, they’d get too self-conscious.)

I could go on with more mentors, some who don’t even know the little, important things they have taught me.  You should take some time to make your own list, even just mentally.  You have had some great mentors too, or you would not be where you are.

Gangplank Mentor

Before I knew January was Mentor Month, I was invited to be a member of the mentor team at Gangplank.  I’m one of the mentors on business operations.  Once a month, more often when I can, I’ll have office hours at Gangplank.  You can book a 45 minute session with me to ask questions about Agile and Agile frameworks like Scrum and Kanban.

My first mentor day is in the afternoon of Tuesday, January 25th.  No fee, just set your appointment with the Gangplank Director of Operations and let’s talk about taking your operations to the next level.

I can’t necessarily give back to all the mentors in my life.  But I can give to someone, who can build something great and give to someone else!

I learned some interesting things that I’ll try to pass on here.

Where You Are

The attendees of the workshop were a diverse group:  A CEO of a web development firm, a web application developer, a project manager and a high-level manager of development for an insurance company.  Each of them had important and different views of Scrum and Agile. Best of all, each of them were highly engaged in learning.

As we discussed, I saw the each of them being open and honest about their experience and knowledge around Scrum.  They were speaking from “where they were” in their own Agile journeys.  This empowered the rest of us to give them what they needed most out of the class.  Early expression of truth brought about meaningful discussion and value.

We all should do this in all our interactions, whether they be daily meetings, planning or talking with our kids.  Where you are is not known to those around you.  If you help them see that place more clearly, the interaction will be far more valuable for them and you.

Experience Is Not Quite Everything

None of us in the room were new to Scrum.  We all had experience with the terms and the practice.  What do you do in a workshop on the Scrum framework with people who already know Scrum?  Mike masterfully structured the class to use the Scrum framework content as a framework for discussion.

Only reading books, watching videos or attending classes is shallow learning.  Agile is all about action and learning from that action.  And remember, combining learning with experience is powerful for building the next leap in action!

Application Teaches

The workshop was filled with interactive activities, from writing Product Backlog Items on cards to shuffling cards and folding boats.  The long-time practitioners on the team consistently expressed delight at the value of studying a concept and then applying it, even in a “contrived” environment.

Action is where the lesson is learned, just as it is in developing a product.

Keep Applying

Lastly I personally learned that continuous application of principles is needed in my own Agile practice.  It is easy to forget the basic little things that make all the difference.  Powerful things, like honesty, direct but polite disagreement and small pieces of a big vision can be more important than we know.  I promise to keep applying them if you will!

That is a hard question to answer.  Not for a lack of information, but because there is so much out there.  A great problem!

To answer the question I just sat down and started typing a flow of information.  Below is the email I sent to the him, largely unchanged.  Eventually I should turn this into a polished document.  I hope you find it valuable and get a starting point that works for you!

Learning

First, I have a few Agile learning philosophy tips.  I’m sure you have your own learning style and I don’t want to pre-empt that, just give you a frame of mind.

Focus on “academic” (pure) knowledge before you dive into “useful” (applied) knowledge.  But, remember that full understanding doesn’t come without application.

There are many things about Agile that are so different in thinking to traditional project and people management that we may want to reject some parts and pieces right off the bat.  Suppress this reaction by seeking to first academically understand the concepts and practices. Like you are just taking a class in college that is a general education requirement with no thought of actually applying it after the final exam.  But you do need to get an “A” on the final, so learn the topic.

Work through the application stages of knowledge.  A concept pulled into Agile from marshal arts is “Shu-Ha-Ri”

• Shu - You learn and do the basics, sometimes without knowing why, because the masters say so.
• Ha - You begin to mix your own experience into the basics, learning where your knowledge can enhance the new knowledge.
• Ri - You are a master and the basics are just part of what you do, are now part of your experience.

Individuals, teams and enterprises go through these stages all the time.  The hardest is to accept the Shu stage because we have to unlearn other habits and trust the new knowledge.

It’s about people

As I stated in my presentation, Agile is about people.  Yes, eXtreme Programming (XP) is a set of Agile practices that tell developers to pair program and other specific things.  Yes, Scrum is a definition of certain meetings, documents etc. that help a team work in a more Agile fashion.  But these and other Agile frameworks are designed the way they are because it is the best way for people to communicate and work together.  Don’t let the practices become more important than the people.

Agile Manifesto

The definition of “Agile” may be ambiguous to you.  It also takes some abuse in companies who claim to be Agile but really only have some of the outward practices without following the true spirit of the movement.  To remove this confusion, go to the Agile Manifesto website, read, study and learn the statements and the principles.  If you are working to follow these ideals, you are becoming Agile.

Frameworks

The Agile Manifesto was created by smart people who had already developed one development framework or another, realized they had some common foundation and got together to define that foundation.  So, one of the best was to start being Agile is by learning and using a framework. The more popular frameworks (sometimes called methodologies) are, in my view:

• Scrum – The one with the most traction and widest use.  It is a project management level framework that focuses on the development team.  It is simple to understand the basics and get started but that makes it simple to do the motions without being Agile.  I started with this framework.
• eXtreme Programming – XP is also well known but not widely implemented.  It has some of the same elements of Scrum but emphasizes engineering practices where Scrum does not.  Pair programming is the most well known element of XP and probably the reason many reject it. XP and Scrum work very well together.
• Kanban – This one is currently gaining in popularity and originated out of lean manufacturing ideas.  It concentrates on work flow, making the flow very visible, thereby exposing bottle necks and waste that should be corrected.

I found Scrum the easiest to personally pick up and to evangelize into the enterprise.  Practicing it for three years now, I have much still to learn and am seeking wider Agile knowledge.

Online Resources

The internet is FULL of great resources about Agile.  Videos, presentations, blogs and email lists abound.  And it is just as good as what you find in books.  So don’t be afraid to go searching for things.  You will find treasures!  Let me give you some starting points.

• http://mountaingoatsoftware.com – This is Mike Cohn’s website.  He has written excellent books on Agile like “Agile Estimating and Planning” The site is full of good ideas and, I think, the slides of every presentation he has ever given.  A gold mine for learning.
• http://implementingscrum.com – This is Micheal Vizdos’s website, a Certified Scrum Trainer.  He uses cartoons to poke fun and knowledge about Scrum.  He was my ScrumMaster trainer and still helps me today. His training style is thoughtful and active.  If you want to take a course, he’d be a good trainer to pick.
• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scrumdevelopment/ – The email group for discussions of all things Scrum.  All the Agile luminaries, it seems, show up here and answer questions.  Troll the archive for great practical advise.  If I could never buy another book about Scrum, I’m not worried because this group has all the authors brain’s wired!
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7230144396191025011 – This is a video of Ken Schweber speaking a Google about Scrum.  This was the first video that hooked me into learning about Agile.  It’s worth the time even though Ken is a bit dry.
• If video is a good learning mode for you, check here: http://agileroots2009.confreaks.com/ for videos of all the session of the Agile Roots 2009 conference.  Great stuff there!
• http://phxsug.org – This is the Phoenix Scrum Users Group website that I mentioned at the end of my presentation.  We have monthly meetings on the 3rd Thrusday of the month.  We focus on Scrum but other frameworks come up from time to time.

Books

• Anything by Mike Cohn.
• “Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great” is awesome for doing this key element of team building practices.
• If you are introducing these practices into a workplace, you need to be a great change agent.  The book “Fearless Change” is indispensable knowledge for such an effort.

There are many more great books out there.

Try it!

The best way to learn is by doing.  Apply some of the principles and framework pieces as you can.  Try a retrospective or make a task board.  Use it, inspect how you did, adapt and improve.  That’s how it works.

Training

Education is compressed experience and a good class can jump start your improvement efforts.  If you don’t feel up to pushing change in you organization, hiring an Agile coach is a good investment.

Ask Questions

Find a community, site or friend.  Ask questions of them and yourself.  Ask here if you like since I like to answer!

The True Measure of Agile

I’m passionate about Agile and the power it brings to the people who apply it as intended.  I’m also frustrated by strong evidence that many who speak the words of Agile development are only wrapping the same old practices in buzz.  This is very bad for Agile and developers everywhere.  So many times I’ve talked to engineers who “did Agile” or “did Scrum” and then proceed to describe a broken and painful experience of micro-management or loosely controlled chaos to failure.  Coaching someone back from such a false agile implementation is often harder than pulling them out of waterfall.

The goal of my presentation was to point people back to the Agile Manifesto, to consider that there are meanings and values behind those words.  Pick a framework, like Scrum or XP.  Combine with practices like TDD and continuous integration.  Do your “stand-up” meeting sitting down if you want.  But make sure you check against the Agile Manifesto to keep driving to what Agile really means.  That if those values are promoted by what you are doing, whatever it is, you are on the “true Agile” path.

My slides are available below for download and reuse.  Because the Ignite format allows only 15 seconds per non-stop slide, there are few words, if any, on most of them.  Perhaps you will find better words than mine to fill in!  Let me know what you think of the message you get from them.  The video will be posted soon at the event web page.  Then you can compare what you thought to what I said.

• Download presentation as an ODP. (Open Document Presentation format, as with OpenOffice.org Impress)
• Download presentation as a PDF.

What I Learned

All of the presentations were great! A few points that stood out for me were:

• Tomasz Stechly (@tstechly) introduced me to the concept and benefits of immutable code.  I’m now sorry to say it’s not a technique I have looked into very much.
• Derek Neighbors (@dneighbors) highlighted that we have too much information to slog through every day and that geo-location is one of the ways we can filter the flood to get at what is relevant where we are standing right now.
• Leo Godin (@leogodin217) re-enforced many of the things I read about getting to done and giving what the customer wants, a solution.
• Clayton Lengel-Zigich (@claytonlz) told 10 fables from Aesop and applied each of them to software development, including pair programming and TDD!

All of the presentations were great! I said that already and I’ll say it again, if anyone asks.  Such talent in the Phoenix area!

Thank You

I give thanks to everyone who sponsored, organized, promoted and spoke.  Especially I thank the audience for an awesome experience!

Certified Scrum Practitioner

The end of September my application for Certified Scrum Practitioner was approved!  How I could have been quiet about that I don’t know.  The process was interesting.  My first submission draft resulted in some requests for additional information.  The requests were spot on, pointing out weaknesses and missing information.  I was very glad for the review and extra work.

Approval took around two months.  I was disappointed and worried about this slow turn-around.  Of course, this was also the time of the recent tumult when Ken Schwaber and Jim Cundiff left the Scrum Alliance.  Maybe that had an effect on the processing time.

Gaining the level of CSP had been helpful with my work.  A few skeptics who actually know little of Scrum or Agile have expressed some additional interest after learning of the new level.  Some seem to take me a bit more seriously.  I see this as a positive benefit, but a minor one.  Continuing the learning is more important to me.

PhxSUG Topic Tables

October 21st the Phoenix Scrum User’s Group had our monthly meeting.  This time we concentrated on drawing for ideas from each other.  We declared the event “Topic Tables” to have multiple discussions at once around various topics.

After we wrote suggested topics, we voted on them as a group.  The four highest vote winners were distributed teams, integration of Scrum and traditional project management, calculation and use of velocity measurement and measuring performance of team members.  I found it to be a fun and interesting way to do the meeting.  It allowed for both learning and getting to know new people.

Ignite Phoenix 5

I posted earlier about my involvement with the crew of volunteers working on Ignite Phoenix events.  Last week Ignite Phoenix 5 went off so smoothly, I still can’t believe the lack of drama for us the organizers.  I love the Phoenix area and the great people on the team and that attend our awesome events!

Local ScrumMaster Discussions

I have been enjoying more interaction with local ScrumMasters and Agile practitioners.  In particular, I enjoyed a recent discussion with Chris Young, ScrumMaster at Integrum Technologies.  He has some great ideas and questions around working with small teams and handling the Product Backlog.  The contrast to the large teams I am currently working with was very interesting.  I hope to do some story workshop study with him very soon.

Developer Ignite 2

While I have worked on organizing Ignite events, I have never presented at one.  A few weeks ago I submitted a topic for Developer Ignite 2.  Intel has a significant presence in the Phoenix area.  They have taken up to sponsoring an Ignite event centered around software development topics.  My submitted topic is “The True Measure of Agile,” which was accepted for presentation!  The event will take place tomorrow, on the evening of November 11th.  I have been practicing my presentation as much as possible.  20 slides in 5 minutes without stopping is not easy to work in!  Certainly forces focus on the core message.  We’ll see how I do tomorrow.

My desire is to reveal the need to work toward the values expressed in the Agile Manifesto.  That whatever framework or practices you use, it’s not Agile unless these values are supported.  I’ll find out if I can do that in only 5 minutes!

I reported my impressions and notes of the meeting on the group website.  Head over there to see what I learned about agile developer excellence and Scrum developer certification possibilities.

I attended Ignite Phoenix 1 more than a year ago.  I was blown away by the willingness of people to stand up and talk about thier passion, the support from the audience and the creative minds connecting.  When Jeff Moriarty and Roger Williams asked for volunteers to organize the next one, I jumped at the opportunity.  I’ve been working the events ever since.

My Experience

Have you ever had a great planning meeting?  One where everyone is at least supporting the discussions and when innovative and powerful ideas just seem to flow?  Have you seen a speech or concert or movie that left you moved, passionate and uplifted?  Fireworks in your head as the passionate presentation awakens power, connections and creativity in your own mind.  This is Ignite Phoenix for me, for 18, five-minute presentations in a row.  A brainstorming session of 550+ people led by 18 presenters with passion!

OK, so maybe it’s not directly Agile or Scrum related, but it is powerful.  It recharges me to work with a fabulous “naturally agile” team.  And the power of team building, on a huge scale, is on display.  I love it!

The Points

• If you have passion to present, please submit your idea by Friday, October 2nd.
• If you are in the Phoenix, Arizona area on November 3rd, you should be at Ignite Phoenix 5.
• We’ll be at The Tempe Center for the Arts in the 600-seat theater.  Watch the web site for updates on ticket availability.

It will stretch your mind!

It’s Work

When I contemplate why I do all this extra work in my spare time, I sometimes conclude I must be cazy.  Extra meetings, lots of email and phone calls, sometimes dealing with difficult situations or people, giving up evenings, days and weekends for the priviledge of working in the hot sun or wrangling a meeting.  Whew!  Am I nuts?

What I get out of such work is valuable to me as a person.  The thrill of helping others, enjoyment of a back-stage pass to a special event, working with great people and learning about myself make all the extra work a small price to pay.

It’s Beneficial

Think about the last time you volunteered to do some work for a community group.  Might have been small, like ushering for one evening event or maybe large like months of planning for an all day festival.  Why did you do it?  How did the leaders of the group “rope you in” to giving up that much time in your life?  You might answer similarly to me.  Here are some other possible reasons:

• You want to help achieve a great goal.
• You enjoy recognition and feedback about your work.
• You seek an avenue for personal growth.
• You wish to give something back to the community.
• You want to bring about social change on a larger scale by working with others.
• Your family needs help and support.
• You are seeking friendship, support, bonding and a feeling of belonging.

When we volunteer based on any one or more of these reasons we are motivated, energetic and worth our weight in gold to the communities we serve.

Agile Connection

You might ask what volunteering has to do with agile practices.  The more I work with agile, the more connections I see.  Some examples:

• Introducing Agile Practices – When introducing agile practices to a traditional environment grass-roots and top down support must both be present.  The agile evangelist must gain the support of many at both the developer and management levels in the organization.  In other words, people at multiple levels of the organization must volunteer to participate.
• Planning – Frameworks like Planning Poker help draw all participants into the planning process.  The Product Backlog, estimating, etc. rely on input from stakeholders and developers alike.  They are expected to volunteer this information into the process.
• Daily Meeting – A fully performing team does not wait for the Scrum Master or other person to direct the meeting.  Each participant volunteers to report what is done, what will be done and any impediments.
• Retrospective – Ever been in a retrospective where the participants don’t offer any input or feedback?  Doesn’t work unless people volunteer information and honest evaluation.
• Self Organizing – Teams used to being told what to do have a hard time volunteering for self control.  And that is what it takes to self organize.

Command and control is the antithesis of volunteering.  A leader that uses command and control will never get the high energy, power and creativity that a dedicated team of volunteers can produce.

Getting Agile Volunteers

I have found that participating as a volunteer worker or leader in community projects is a valuable experience.  I watch myself and others to learn why we volunteer.  I watch the leaders to learn how they nurture the volunteers and the organization.  Look at the list of reasons one might volunteer for a community organization.  It’s probable the developers and managers in your work place are looking for many of those same things!  Volunteering experiences can be reapplied to transform reluctant agile participants into powerful volunteers!

Do you volunteer or lead community volunteer organizations?  What have you learned about creating “volunteers” for your business and team’s success?