Agile Complexification Inverter

I am working with a team that is in transition.  They have been told that they will practice Scrum.  I don't bother to question this directive from above.  I figure that the people above the team don't know why either...  oh, yes they were at the company all-hands meeting where IT was handed down, there were the typical platitude reasons for the change, faster time to market, being able to respond to new influences in the greater marketplace (e.g. AI, Serverless Environments, etc.) all sounded great at the town hall.  But when asked why this particular team that will never see those technologies in their arena would need to practice Scrum - the best reason is - because we said so.  So that is the CHANGE - it has been forced upon these 7 people.  I am acting upon the transition they are going through.  The current transition is in writing stories.  All have said they are use to working with stories, so we dive right in... but they are not ver...

Door Security Protocol: Find the next number in the sequence 313, 331, 367, ...? This is a test... How long will it take you to work this out... Quite a while is my guess.  And only a few will actually try to figure it out.  Most will give up, a few will search online, and a few will have already seen the sequence recognize it and either remember the answer (the next number in the sequence) or derive it with the sparse knowledge they remember about the sequence. Spoiler Alert!  Let me give you the background knowledge. You know what a Prime Number is - do you recognize that all the numbers in the list are prime? Do you know what a Happy Number is?  Or it's inverse an Unhappy Number?  Well, this is a bit more obscure in the general knowledge.  So here is a spoiler...  all those numbers are happy!  They are Happy Primes! A number is happy when the repeated practice of replacing the number by the sum of the squares...

The Committed Sardine By Ian Jukes  A blue whale is the largest mammal on earth. The adult blue whale is the length of 2½ Greyhound buses and weighs more than a fully loaded 737. A little known fact is that a blue whale is so large that when it decides to turnaround, it can take 3 to 5 minutes to turn 180 degrees in the opposite direction. As a result, some people have drawn a strong parallel between blue whales and our school system. It just seems to take forever to turn them around. There as some people who just don’t believe the public school system can be turned around. But compare the way a blue whale turns around (slowly) with how a school of. . . Sardines – which is the same or even greater mass than a blue whale. . . A school of sardines can almost turn instantly around – how do they do it? The answer is simple. If you take a careful look at a school of sardines you will notice that although all the fish appear to be swimming in the same direction, at any one ti...

IDEO-University 'From Ideas to Action' Lesson 1. Join the dialogue on G+ Agile+ group . Dialogue on Collaboration  on Facebook (PDF) Collaboration starts with who we are and our story - not the technology or the data "The Future of Work Is Social Collaboration from Inside Out, where people connect around the why of work from who they really are as individuals in community. They collaborate in generative conversations and co-create what’s next, i.e. their unique Contribution of value to society – what we might call Social Good. They collaborate by taking the time to appreciate and align each other’s unique, hard wired, natural strengths, creating new levels of authentic and trusting relationships to take the Social Journey." Jeremy Scrivens  Director at The Emotional Economy at Work What does dialogue mean... what does it contribute to collaboration? Here's what the inventor of the internet Al Gore had to say about this: Audie Cornish speaks with form...

My progress in The Impossible Room - iOS app puzzle game by Maruf Nebil. “Only one room  Only one way  Key is alive  Leave or stay" Spoiler Alert --- some puzzles are solved below. Day 1. Collected Items  ———— paper scrap lamp shade screwdriver tesla book USB cord Book Shelf  - opens Screwdriver ------------------------------------- Aristotle  384 BCE Roger Bacon  1214 - 1292 Leonardo Da Vinci  1452 - 1519 Copernicus  1473 - 1543 Galileo  1564 - 1642 Newton  1642 - 1727 Faraday  1791 - 1867 Tesla  1856- 1943 Alan Turing  1912 - 1954 Stephen Hawking  1942  3 Stars - 5 points; ball on one point - 1 missing star;  color of stars & books may signify the overlap of authors lives shark - pinguen - robot   - got a  USB cord in drawer (^^^)   <(“)   :|] Bird - Dog - Elephant - Dolphin   (...

Many companies have initiatives to become innovative.  There are some companies that don't appear to need a leadership sponsor to get competitive innovation - wonder why.  Perhaps they have some fundamental aspect to their organization that allows them to be creative.  What would be those aspects? Why It Feels Like We're Falling Behind It can take years to notice a life-changing invention.  - Motley Fool It took the world a few years to recognize that the Wright brothers had flown the first airplane at Kitty Hawk, NC (first flight in Dec. 1903 to 1908 public demonstrations). Here's my research on the topic of creativity. The musical group OK-Go! describes their process to achieve creativity - and the math behind the wonder and surprise they are reliably able to deliver. An awesome lesson in discovery - planning to play - to achieve innovation. Predicting Creativity in the Wild -- a research paper on the use of sociometric monitoring of teams by Sociom...

I presented at the Results Oriented Web Conference in Dallas last week.  It was a very nice conference with lots of interesting people.  I had fun with my presentation,  The Marshmallow Design Challenge .  Turns out it was finger licking fun. Finger licking FUN! Marshmallow Design Challenge A winner - 26 inches tall. Wondering what this fun exercise teaches?  Watch the TED video to find out.   Spollier Alert - it's more fun to experience it and then watch the video. Next time I'm bring one of these: From Amazon See Also:   Agile Games Video of Marshmallow Challenge

We were invited to Thomson Reuters for our AgileFest! 2013 planning retrospective.  Derek and Modesto did a wonderful job designing a metaphor board.  We had fun filling it in with concepts, ideas, feelings and reflecting on 3 months of work.  That work resulted in a great day of learning. Get Silverlight and view a PhotoSynth of the Retro board and space. Derek raises an eye at that comment Modesto can see with eyes shut AgileFest Lessons Learned Review

What was your favorite T-shirt seen at the  Agile 2012  conference? One awesome t-shirt was seen on Adam Yuret @AdamYuret . Ninja + Rockstar != Teamwork. Ninja + Rockstar != Teamwork tshirt In his article the Myth of the Rockstar Programmer , Scott Hanselman lays out these definitions: Junior Engineer - Creates complex solutions to simple problems. Engineer - Creates simple solutions to simple problems. Senior Engineer - Creates simple solutions to complex problems. Rockstar Engineer - Makes complex problems  disappear . Speaking of t-shirts; his graphic would go very well on a t-shirt wouldn't it?  Well, I created one very similar a few months ago.   Obviously there is an I in TEAM! t-shirt - buy one now on Zazzle . Buy it on Zazzle - NOW! This is the best t-shirt give away I received, the Tasty Cupcakes  Got Game? t-shirt. See Also:   Best t-shirt at Agile 2011

Some years ago I designed this exercise for a Pair Programming simulation using the media of the game of chess.  The idea was to have a pair on each side of the board, they would work together to finish a famous game against their opponents (a pair also). I never used the exercise because the developers I was working with didn't know the game of chess, and didn't seem interested in the simulation.   If you use this please let me know how it works out. Garry Kasparov (White) vs X3D Fritz Computer (Black) Man-Machine World Chess Championship 2003 Game 1 (after 31 ... Bxa2) White to move Instructor material for Chess Game Pairing Exercise Required Materials Chess board and pieces (one per 4 students) Timers (optional) Diagram of an in-progress chess game(s) (attached) Introduce the Exercise Pair programming is generally thought of as an XP (extreme programming) practice.  In true Agile form we are borrowing a practice tha...

Agile Games 2012 conference in Cambridge. " The Marshmallow Challenge is a remarkably fun and instructive design exercise that encourages teams to experience simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation and creativity." David presenting the challenge at Agile Games conference. Watch Tom Wujec's TED.com talk about his many experiences with this exercise.   Agile Games 2013 ! See Also:   Results Oriented Web conference Marshmallow Challenge workshop Don't mistake the Marshmallow Challenge with the Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel.  One is a design challenge - the other is an experiment designed to see if personality traits such as self-control are malleable. Cephalopods Have Passed a Cognitive Test Designed For Human Children Cuttlefish were given a new version of the marshmallow test, and the results may demonstrate that there's more going on in their strange little brains than we knew.

I had a wonderful Christmas.  My nephews got me addicted to the Dragonvale game.  A land where one breeds dragons of various types - did you know, dragons are very hybidizable (I'm sure that's not a standard dictionary word). Dragonvale - iOS simulation game. To build up to a high enough level to purchase a breeding cave one must build treat farms, dragon habits and grow crops.  For this there is an internal game monetary market.  The prices of these goods are set by the game designers (I'm assuming it is not a true " free market ").  The game does not have a sane and balanced market pricing system. The objective of any game designer is to get you to play and have fun.  That is objective number one - design in the fun-factor (see MIT Technology Review 's Exploiting the Fun Factor ).  A secondary objective is to build a game where people will spend money - real cash in exchange for virtual goods.  This is one technique f...

I'm excited to see Game Storming the iPhone app . Dave Gray notes that " games and play are not the same thing ."  He will teach you to bring games into the work place to get work done.  I think one of the side effects is that you may start to have fun.  For many people work will never be the same as play.  Yet if you want to change the world (thank you Steve Jobs); if you wish to have a purpose aligned life, then you will need to find a way to make play equal to work.  For me, this involves bring games into the work place. Related posts: Games and the Human Agile tools for your iPhone - a list

Assuming you are on a Scrum/Agile software development team, then one of the first 'working agreements' you have created with your team is a 'Definition of Done' - right? Oh - you don't have a definition of what aspects a user story that is done will exhibit. Well then, you need to create a list of attributes of a done story. One way to do this would be to Google 'definition of done' ... here let me do that for you: http://tinyurl.com/3br9o6n . Then you could just use someone else's definition - there DONE! But that would be cheating -- right? It is not the artifact - the list of done criteria, that is important for your team - it is the act of doing it for themselves, it is that shared understanding of having a debate over some of the gray areas that create a true working agreement. If some of the team believes that a story being done means that there can be no bugs found in the code - but some believe that there can be some minor issues - well,...