Agile Complexification Inverter

Why do humans play games?  Do other animals play?  What value does play create in the propagation of the genes?  Should we play more, play at work, should we play when we are old?    "The average 4 year old laughs 40 times a day;      the average 40 year old laughs 4 times a day." Here are some great videos that describe this phenomena. Why Do We Play Games?   by Vsauce    "The opposite of play is not work, it is depression."     -- Brian Sutton-Smith Stuart Brown:  Play is more than Fun.  TED.com A pioneer in research on play, Stuart Brown says humor, games, roughhousing, flirtation and fantasy are more than just fun. Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults — and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. (Recorded at Serious Play in May 2008, in Pasadena, California. Duration: 26:42.) The National Institute For Play. Patterns of Play BBC intervi...

I've collected a few videos that I find explain the new paradigm of the 21st century management. Punishment or Reward?  Which is more effective? by Veritasium Discusses the gambler's fallacy and regression to the mean when samples are taken from a normal population.  The importance of control groups in scientific studies. Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. TED Talk 2009 Dan will demonstrate that what science knows, business does not practice in the 21st century.  Watch this if you are a manager - you've been lawyered ! Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work? Dan Pink: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. RSA Animate Sir Ken Robinson  TED talk:  How to Escape Education's Death Valley Dr. Anita Williams Woolley, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Theory presented to alumni at Reunion 2013. Most of us are familiar with the idea of "general intelligence" in individuals, b...

I don't think 5 keys need to be ordered.  I've narrowed down a long list of keys, these are the ones that floated to the top.  So these are not in order of importance or steps in adoption; no, you have to do all of these at the same time. Everyone is responsible for teamwork. A culture of experimentation, reflection and learning. Define multiple rhythms - stick to the beat.  Pay attention to the syncopations. Visualize your work - all of it, and in multiple ways (task boards, diagrams, UML, reports, alarms). Get a Product Owner that wants to play ball in the Scrum mentality - or don't even start. I may expand upon the meaning of these bullet points later. What do you think is key for a new organizations Scrum adoption? See Also: ScrumProUK - Simon Morris @Simo_Morris http://scrumprouk.tumblr.com/post/52537981825/my-5-tips-for-scrum-adoption Product Owner in a Nutshell - video by Henrik Kniberg of Crisp. An Agile Adop...

Visualizing the Creative Process  by Daniel Cook of the Lost Garden blog As I coach new developers, I've taken to scribbling out the same useful diagram for visualizing the creative process again and again on coffee-ringed napkins.  In order to limit my future abuse of culinary paper wares, I've reproduced my images in a more formal fashion in this essay.   The conversation usually starts with the following statement:  "Creativity is like a snake swallowing a series of tennis balls." And when confused looks inevitably result, I sketch some variant of this odd little picture:   read more....​ of this article by Daniel Cook of the Lost Garden blog

What metrics do you collect to  analyze  your scrum team? It's the Trends of Metrics that matter. We live in a world of data and information.  Some people have a mindset that numbers will diagnose all problems – “just show me the data.”  Therefore many directors and senior managers wish to see some list of metrics that should indicate the productivity and efficiency of the Scrum team.  I personally believe this is something that can be felt, that human intuition is much better in this decision realm than the data that can be collected.  However, one would have to actually spend time and carefully observe the team in action to get this powerful connection to the energy in a high-performing team space.  Few leaders are willing to take this time, they delegate this information synthesis task to managers via the typical report/dashboard request.  Therefore we are asked to collect data, to condense this data into information, all while ignorin...

The Hokey Pokey   — by William Shakespeare O proud left foot, that ventures quick within Then soon upon a backward journey lithe. Anon, once more the gesture, then begin: Command sinistral pedestal to writhe. Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke, A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl. To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke. Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl. The Hoke, the poke — banish now thy doubt Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about. From a Washington Post Style Invitational contest, that asked readers to submit instructions for something (anything), but written in the style of a famous person. The winning entry was The Hokey Pokey (as written by Shakespeare), written by Jeff Brechlin, of Potomac Falls, Maryland.   Source . A rehab center with a mission. David Koontz - CHPI

The software industry has created a knowledge and expectation of product versions.  Previously the closest industry to create this mindset was the automotive industry - they had the model year concept.  Typically they added nice to have "bells or whistles", but rarely added true features each iteration of the auto model year. Software was a new paradigm, back in the 1980s, this industry started using a version numbering scheme (major dot minor). For example, Windows 3.1, the first version to truly work and deliver value to the customer. What happens when a company moves back to the model year concept of versioning in the software industry?  Does it help customer to understand the expectations of value being delivered?  Does it create more cognitive load for decision makers? Here's an example, you tell me; it is May of 2013 , is this the best move for Company X. Coming Soon: SharePoint 2010 The long-awaited upgrade to Sha...

Thinking on Jay's suggestion at his presentation  ( DFW Scrum , AgileFest! ) to create an Agile Playbook ; I'm wondering why scrum masters don't do this more often.  Well, guess what?  It's very good advice.  The authors Chip and Dan Heath give this very advice in their new book Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work . Why do teams continually over estimate the number of stories they can complete (potentially shippable tested working software) in a sprint?  There are many reasons.  But what play would you run next sprint if you were the team? If your team already has an agile mindset, then the natural play will be to reduce the amount of work they are bringing into the sprint.  The result of this play is to return the team to a consistant delivery of value.  Resulting in a predictable velocity.  This predictable velocity will be used for projecting the release scope or date. The problem for many teams is they ...

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

One of the suggested improvements for our AgileFest! 2013 was a  "How-To" document for planning a conference.  So in the nature of an experiment in gathering some "validated learning" I'm going to post a rough draft of this future book here.  If it gets some interest, hits, comments, suggestions then I'll turn it into an eBook. Since this page will be an on going effort to create a draft, outline, sketch, etc. of the whole how-to guide, you may want to revisit this page in a week, and again in a month. First, creating a conference is an Agile project, so treat it like any other agile project.  Hold several visioning meetings and workshops.  Insure that you and the core group explore your vision of the conference, understand the explicit goals, and try to uncover the hidden agenda of the conference drivers.  Don't kid yourselves there are alterative motives - everyone has some, so get them out in the open. Define what a suc...

[Reprint of article in "The Current" a Sabre newsletter.] “Serious” Fun at AgileFest! More than 200 Sabre employees participated in the “sold out” AgileFest! event in Southlake on March 21. AgileFest! is a one-day conference covering all aspects of Agile software development and was created and sponsored by the Airline Solutions Development Agile Coaches. This year, eight industry experts from around the country hosted sessions to share their ideas about Agile – ranging from the theoretical to the practical. Luke Hohmann, founder and CEO of Innovation Games, kicked off the morning with the keynote speech in a packed cafeteria. Luke focused on how we can use serious games with our clients to have deeper conversations, unearth priorities, drive innovation and ultimately, deliver better results. The conference then split into sessions, to allow participants to choose the topic that interested them most.  Options included a session by Eric Nusbaum about creati...

Sabre's AgileFest! Lessons Learned Review A few people that attended  AgileFest! 2013  came together to solidify lessons learned at the event.  We created  mindmaps  of the sessions.  Shared key points the speakers shared in their presentation, and exercises.  Here's our mindmaps. It was April Fool's day - so we started with an example of how to draw a mindmap in real time.  Will played the Google Nose (beta) Video , and I mapped it as an example.  Darn - didn't get a picture of that map. The Mission for the Lessons Learned session was to create an artifact for sharing and reflecting. Mind Map example Here is the group still talking about the wonderful lessons from AgileFest! 2013. What's in Your Playbook -- Jay Packlick Distributed Teams Workshop -- Derek Wade Intro to LEGO Serious Play -- Steve Paro Navigating the Sea of Change -- Modesto Hernandez & Derek Lane Creating Positive Cul...

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 metrics would a great Scrum team want to generate and track the trend? Is the  necessary and sufficient set of metrics just velocity?  No - I don't think that is enough.  Can you help me define a short list of metrics, and the reasons for tracking them? First let's lay out some ground rules.  Who is responsible for generating the metrics?  Are all metrics treated the same, e.g. should each metric have the same visibility?  I'll state the the team is responsible for generating the metrics.  This ensures that the metric has some minimun level of veracity.  When the team believes that the metric does not tell the truth, they should make that visible and change how it is generated.  This is process improvement.  However not all metrics need be treated the same.  Some should be published, some could stay internal to the team.  As the level of trust and autonomy of the team increases the visibility of me...

I am speaking at an upcoming conference on April 12 in Dallas, titled: ' The Marshmallow Design Challenge ' . The  2nd Annual  Results Oriented Web   Summit focuses on the core disciplines for online success - content, design & user experience (UX), marketing and project management. The conference is organized by community leaders bringing together top experts in their field. I want to personally invite you to this unique event by offering you a 50% off discount code that is good until Friday, March 15. Go to  http://resultsorientedweb.com/register   and use the code ROWFRIEND .