It’s that time of year again, Christmas is just around the corner, people are talking about the possibility of snow on Christmas Day and, of course, it’s almost time for XP Days Benelux, the friendliest and most fun Agile conference I know.

I’ll be presenting a brand new session about Tribal Leadership based on the book by Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fisher-Wright. I’ve had great fun experimenting with the theory, so I hope you’ll enjoy it!

Tribal Leadership – Create the place where you long to belong

Do you hope that one day all the office politics will be replaced by a common and worthwhile cause? Do you wish you could be part of a winning team? Do you dream of working in a place where you belong?

Every organisation is made up of tribes, naturally occurring groups of between 20 – 150 people. And even though each tribe is different they have one thing in common: organisational culture.

Join me to learn about Tribal Leadership, a practical model for leveraging natural groups to create organisations that thrive. Learn how you can help transform your work experience into what you want it to be by focusing on language and behaviour within a culture.

You’ll get the chance to identify the stage you and your tribe are in and the next stage you want to move towards. Working in pairs, triads and as a whole group, you’ll leave the session with a roadmap of your own to take your tribe towards “Innocent Wonderment”.

Find out more about the session here.

Looking forward to the fun and games at XP Days Benelux and all the invaluable learning and sharing!

A glimpse of my personal play history

When I look back at my working life to date, there’s a moment that stands out from all the rest.

It’s 2002. I’d been working for several years and had come to terms with what most people would describe as your typical “working life”. I worked hard and always tried to do my best. Sometimes that was good enough, at other times, it wasn’t. Then one day, as I sit in my dentist’s waiting room, I pick up a glossy magazine because my appointment was running late. An article about work catches my eye.

Against a backdrop of glamorous smiles and beautifully coiffed heads, a journalist told me that “We spend more than 75% of our waking hours doing work and work-related activities.” As though that were not sufficiently terrifying, she went on to say, “The average working person will spend more time in their entire lifetime with their colleagues than their loved ones.”

Quick as a flash, a quiet resolve forms in my mind. Life’s too short to spend it on doing what you don’t enjoy with people who’s company you don’t care for.

Ever since then, that’s been one of my guiding principles on how I choose to do my work. It was difficult at first but I found that with practice I could create opportunities for myself and others to do more meaningful work that I’ve come to describe as “Playmaking“.

Where next?

If you want to find out more about Transformative Play and get ideas on how to satisfy your recommended daily amount of play at work, join me at Oredev on 9 November in Sweden where I’ll be presenting on “The Power of Play – Making Good Teams Great“.

In addition to the latest research behind the power of play, there’ll be lots of storytelling including:

• The Sorry Story of the Sea Squirt
• The Hunger Games – How play can help hunger at bay
• What happens when a very hungry polar bear meets a husky?

I hope to see you there!

Emergency Self-Rescue

Are you having a thrisis? How do you know if you’ve got it? And if you are suffering from a thrisis, what can you do about it?

I recently came across the term “thrisis” and it’s been playing on my mind ever since. A thrisis is a mid-life crisis in your thirties. Given my birthday last month, I’m certainly susceptible. In fact, I think I may have contracted it some years ago but didn’t know what to call it.  The Florence Nightingale in me tells me I should get it seen to ASAP.

An open mind seeks possibilities

Now that I know there may be an issue, I sign up for a seminar on “Happiness” by Charlie Morley, all the while telling myself to keep an open mind. In doing so, I discover I’m an “optimistic sceptic”.

According to Charlie’s research on Happiness, Happiness is “a fundamental friendliness towards life”, otherwise known as “unconditional friendliness”.

To be happy, Charlie says we need to differentiate between what we can change and what’s outside of our control. The reality is, most of what exists outside of us is full of uncertainty and uncontrollable. Trying to control the uncontrollable is like trying to swallow the sun. The only thing for certain is that it’s sure to give you more than a sore throat.

Instead, look around you and observe what’s going on. By observe, Charlie means to simply acknowledge what’s happening, without judgment. This allows us to make friends with our mind and, by doing so, increase our awareness of what is and what isn’t. When we are able to acknowledge what has come to pass with unconditional friendliness, we give ourselves the chance to change the way we see the world.

The 3 Paradoxes

Charlie identifies 3 paradoxes towards happiness:

1. Help others to help yourself. This is also known as “selfish selflessness”. It’s WIN-WIN even though it’s not altruistic.
2. Thinking more about death is good for you. “It’ll shake you up to wake you up,” says Charlie. Pop quiz: what do buddhists talk about most when they get together? Death, according to Charlie.
3. Happiness is a habit. It takes a lot of practice. The first step is to “accept” your unhappiness. By doing so, you acknowledge where you are and that allows you to move forward.

Pause for Thought

Come to think of it, thrisis is unlikely to be only an age-related condition. In fact, this condition might be part of what many of us experience day-to-day but don’t call out by name. The French call it “ennui” and I’m sure other cultures have a name for it, too.

My one consolation, the Agile principle of “Fail early, fail fast”. The quicker I discover there’s something wrong, the quicker I can begin to address it and the more time I have in sorting it out which should increase my chances of getting it sorted. Call it “Optimist’s Logic”. What’s more, my spidey sense tells me there’s an adventure in all this, so things can’t be all that bad.

How can you express unconditional friendliness right now? And tomorrow?

From Journeyman to Master

It’s been a while since I last coded, so I jumped at the opportunity when I heard about an Object-Oriented kata run by Sandro Mancuso, the man who started the London Software Craftsmanship Community. Sandro and I’ve exchanged a handful of contemplations about the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto recently, so I was really glad to experience it firsthand last week.

According to Sandro, the thing a craftsman strives to achieve is “Perfect Code”. If that’s at one end of the spectrum, what’s at the other? The code we write at work, our Daily Code. And what’s in-between? The space in-between, says Sandro, “represents how much we suck”. I laugh out loud. This remark warms my heart and tickles my funny bone. I like to think of it as “my room for improvement”. Either way, the gap exists and we can all do something about it. It turns out that something is called “Perfect Practice”.

What does “perfect” mean?

To me, “perfect” is an aspiration. It’s elusive by design. It’s an aspiration because we’re always to make things as great as they can be. It’s elusive because something can always be improved. The pursuit of perfection is striving to always be better. That makes “perfect” a moving target which is why it requires lifelong learning. It’s about being a lifelong apprentice.

Perfect Code requires Perfect Practice

When we’re at work, we’re faced with a whole bunch of challenges. Tight deadlines, peer pressure, insufficient skills, knowledge and/or experience, to name but a few. So what do we do? We make compromises, also known as hacks, false trade-offs, driven by short-term thinking.

Instead of trying to write perfect code during work hours from the outset, Sandro suggests we strive for Perfect Practice. In our own time, on our own terms. Why? Because this creates the headspace we need to learn how to do our job better. To close the gap, we need different conditions from those associated with pure “delivery mode”. The army calls it “Train hard, fight easy.” Software crafts people call it “Perfect Practice”.

“The longest journey begins with a single step…”

Sandro gets us to work in pairs, doing Test-Driven Development to develop a banking application with basic functionality such as making deposits and withdrawals. He repeatedly reminds us that the goal of the exercise is to learn and not, as we might immediately assume, to be the pair to finish first or complete it in its entirety.

“It doesn’t matter how far you get in the exercise,” Sandro says. “The goal is ‘Perfect Practice’. Over time, with practice, this becomes second nature. That’s what will enable us to write better code at work.”

Since it’s been a while since I last coded, I give my pair buddy Dan a brief description of my technical skills, knowledge and experience. I explain I was most definitely rusty at best and that I would strive to be better. As a sign of trust, he plugs in the second keyboard and mouse and we’re good to go.

The Art of Perfect Practice

The rest is “Perfect Practice”. Instead of rushing around like a pair of headless chickens, we took our time to think and talk things through, from the approach we would take (Domain-Driven Design) down to the specifics (Ubiquitous Language, Design Patterns and the careful naming of each variable and method).

The result? Well-crafted code that is easy to understand and maintain. Every decision was conscious and considered. What else? A sense of immense satisfaction. It tasted of euphoria because it brought back memories of all those times when we took care to do a good job. And the many possibilities for improvement. I could hear my heart sing.

And as I looked around the room, filled with 15 smiling faces and furrowed brows, all signs of minds deep in thought and conversation, I have proof. Proof that there are others out there who care about their craft. People who care so deeply that they invest their own time in Perfect Practice.

To think of many things

The kata reminded me of many things. That everything we produce tells us a lot about who we are. That programming is poetry, a transmutation of ideas into words. That it takes 10,000 hours to get really good at what we do. That Perfect Practice can be part of what we do and how we live. Every day.

How will you feed your need for Perfect Practice today?

Ask for help

One of the things that Agile has taught me is this: “When in doubt, ask for help“. So when it comes to gardening, who better to seek help from than seasoned experts with a passion and an excellent track record for helping people grow? I know as a green gardener I’m going to need as much nurturing as my garden does if we’re to start creating a place of beauty and keep it growing.

Where to go for help

Colleagues, friends and family. We’re surrounded by people who have the credentials and who are willing to help. By simply asking around for help, you’ll uncover an abundance of people ready to share their advice and ideas. The key is to find people who care about their craft and has genuine experience with some knowledge and skills to boot.

In my experience, the kind of experts you want on your project behave like ambassadors, people who are willing to share their stories in a respectful way. They won’t tell you what to do. Instead, they’ll share with you what they did, the good, the bad and the ugly. And their lessons learned. And how they’re no expert. That they’re still learning. They’ll usually quickly let you know how much experience they really have so that you both understand where each of you is coming from.

Working together to get started

Next, you’ll move forward together where you clarify your goals and together come up with real options for next steps. The secret when working with experts and consultants is to consult them. You’re under no obligation to take up their advice, but you’d be wise to listen. And if you find yourself strongly disagreeing with one expert, ask someone else for help and see what they come up with. Then, if after speaking to a handful of these experts, you find they’re not providing any value (and all saying the same thing), you’d do well to dig deep. Do some personal root cause analysis and figure out why you’re always right and everyone else wrong.

Some things money just can’t buy

The best help I’ve had over the years are from people who stay hands-on and care deeply about what they do. They take time to understand the situation and your goals before making suggestions. Most important of all, they’ve learned to see the big picture even if we’re stood in a field of weeds.

Green Fingers

I’m green to gardening. I took up gardening recently and have been pleasantly surprised by how a spot of rooting around in dirt can refresh the mind and provide a different perspective on things.

My 3Ps of Gardening

“P” is for Patience. How long does it take for a seed to turn into an oak tree? Depending on your perspective, quite a while or not long at all. One thing’s for sure, it takes time. And no matter how much we try to hurry the seed along, Nature will run its course. Assigning ten gardeners won’t make the seed grow faster. In fact, fussing about with the seed could put it in peril. Better then to provide what the seed needs and give it the time and space to grow. That’s what good gardeners do.

“P” is for Practice. There’s lots to learn when it comes to gardening. Depending on your goals, interests and stamina, it’s a lifelong experience. As my father says, “A garden’s for life. And it needs you.” Given this commitment, it’s natural to want to make repetitive tasks, like weeding, as effective and efficient as possible so you have time to “grow” things. This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hour rule“, that’s the time it takes to get really good at doing something.

“P” is for Pragmatism. Asking someone to create a garden overnight is like asking someone to swallow the sun. It’s physically impossible. Even if you manage to plant everything, the plants still take time to bed down, breathe and fill their space. It takes time for visitors like the birds and the bees to discover the place. It takes time for a garden to come alive. Gardening is about recognising potential. Through the art of the possible, we move forward, sometimes with great leaps forward and mainly with baby steps. Especially if you grow your own and have only the weekends spare.

Going social with gardening

I’ve spent less than 24 hours toiling in my garden and I can already see it’s going to be a lifelong adventure. Most importantly, it’s helped me look at work from a fresh perspective. It’s given me the idea for what I call “Social Gardening”, the concept of applying the principles and practices of gardening to work. One that is filled with challenge, anticipation, and hope. And, of course, fun. Lots of it. Watch this space!

Begin with the end in mind

I still remember the moment when I first heard that Agile 2011 was going to take place in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was during an announcement at the end of Agile 2009.

At the time I wasn’t sure how I’d get there and with whom I’d go, but two things were certain.

Firstly, I thought it would be nice to re-live history by visiting the room where the Agile Manifesto was created 10 years ago. Partly out of curiosity and partly out of respect to the 17 visionary-signatories without whom I probably wouldn’t have a job I love doing and related to IT.

Secondly, I would have to go with a group. After all, Agile is fundamentally about people working together. It would be odd and sad for me to show up and no one to relive the historic moment with.

Almost everything I’ve ever experienced with Agile has been remarkable, so it came as no surprise that our journey to Snowbird was equally serendipitous.

Mission Possible

As soon as I arrived in Salt Lake City, I started polling for interest about a visit up to Snowbird. My mission was clear: to get a bunch of people up to Snowbird to celebrate the manifesto’s 10th birthday. I didn’t do it in a fanatical way. Rather, I offered it as an option.

Some people would smile politely and nod, agreeing that it was a good idea in principle. Others would stare bemused since they felt it unnecessary; we were already at the conference, isn’t that all that mattered? May be for them, but not for me.

Two days into the conference, I only had one other person seriously interested in making the journey – Carsten Ruseng, a friendly Dane, from Systematic.

Over the course of the next couple of days, we tried to create and evaluate options for making the visit possible. We both wanted to make the most of the conference AND we wanted to visit Snowbird. I felt confident that we could achieve the mission if  only we applied Agile and Systems Thinking to the problem.

Information Gathering and Agile Planning

Meanwhile, I needed to find out the exact location of the room. Fortunately, I bumped into Alistair Cockburn during the conference and he gave me precise directions. It’s Lodge at Snowbird, exit 3. The rooms’s just above the reception. That was the most crucial piece of information I needed to complete my mission.

Then finally, last Thursday, on the evening before the last day of the conference, Carsten and I committed to executing the mission (the last responsible moment). We’d meet bright and early the next day (at 7 am to be exact) and go to Snowbird. It would mean that we’d miss Kevlin Henney’s talk but I knew Kevlin would understand.

Without a goal, it’s hard to score

Throughout our planning conversations, we always went back to our goals for the mission. In Carsten’s words, “We’ve already come all this way for the conference. Not going would be like not seeing Niagara Falls even though we were in Toronto.” Since we’d both managed to visit the falls independently during Agile 2008, I understood what Carsten meant.

But we were still only two. Given that three’s a crowd, I wished for one more person to join us on the pilgrimage. Just when I’d almost given up hope late Thursday night, Carsten texts me to say that Henrik Kniberg would like to join us and would that be OK. OK? I said. Most definitely!

Carpe diem

We arrive at 07.50 outside Lodge at Snowbird. When we get to the reception, I look the gentleman behind the desk straight in the eye and begin to explain why we are there.

We’ve come to see a very special room, I say. We’re in Salt Lake City to attend a conference and 10 years ago, a bunch of people created a manifesto related to the conference. They created the manifesto in the room just above your reception, I explain.

At first, the gentleman stares at us blankly and then he starts to ask us a whole bunch of questions. What’s the conference about? Where do you all come from? Why is seeing the room so important?

So close, yet so far

Just when I think he is going to decline our request, Monte tells us that 10 years ago, he was made redundant doing IT. He tells us how, at the time, he thought there must be a better way of developing software and he even wrote an essay about it. He asks us to tell him a bit more about the manifesto. Have the lives of IT professionals improved, he asks. Are they happier? To which we reply things have improved, but with improvements come greater expectations. We’re doing our best. We’re always striving to learn, we tell him. He smiles and shakes his head in disbelief.

Monte ushers us into the office so that we could look up the manifesto online. Henrik had come up with the idea that we could double-check we’re looking at the right room based on the background picture of the manifesto with the signatories stood in a circle.

History is what we make it

Everything from there is history. Before taking our group picture, we scribble up the 4 values as though they were fresh from yesterday. We start joking and laughing at our adventure. We ask Monte to take a picture of us. Then we set the camera on auto-shoot so that we can get a picture with Monte in it, too. This is the crowd I was hoping for.

We spend the next half hour strolling around Snowbird. It’s not difficult to imagine how such beautiful scenery would inspire people to come up with something like the manifesto, Carsten remarks. During the walk, we exchange more of our memories accumulated over the last decade. We talk about getting lost, following and leadership.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye…

The overarching theme of that day has to be closure. Henrik mentioned it several times. He explains how he was going to go on a family holiday soon for six months and has handed over the Agile Manifesto translation project to Shane Hastie, newly elected on the Agile Alliance board. Henrik describes how by initiating a translation project in a certain region or country, it has brought people together, in debate and discussion about what the manifesto really means. Translating the manifesto into a different language usually marks the start of something important.

Making work matter

For me, closure has resulted in a new beginning. One that builds on the past while clearly looking into the future. It reminds me of Tom Peter’s frustration when he wonders out loud why it’s taken so long for us to realise excellence, and we’re not there yet, even though he wrote the book “In Search of Excellence” more than two decades ago.

And my answer is this. Everyone knows what’s right, but only the Spartans do it. That was the lesson I learnt in history class all those years ago. We can go around claiming to be “agile”, but everyone else recognises when we’re not. To make progress, we need to first be honest with ourselves. How agile are we really? Most importantly, why should it matter? What do we want to achieve, now and in the future? How will you make work matter today?

The Emperor’s New Clothes

The brand new Agile Fairytale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” will be making its first appearance in the US at Agile 2011 on Tuesday, August 9! It was first shown at XP Days Benelux 2010 and has been travelling around Europe with Jenni Jepsen and me ever since!

Meaningful interactions in stressful situations

See the Emperor in all his glory! Which role will you play? We all interact with different types of characters in our daily lives which may lead to stressful situations. Together, we’ll learn how to communicate more effectively with others, especially at times of stress, by transforming our behavior from incongruence to congruence. We’ll learn to recognise incongruence by role-playing the 5 Coping Stances based on the Satir Model, then learn how to begin transforming our behavior from one of incongruence to congruence by thinking about interactions in terms of Self, Other and Context.

Places are limited to 30 participants, so come early to play, de-stress and improve!

What does Agile mean to me?

Agile is a means not an end. It’s a means to improve the way we work to the benefit of individuals, teams, organisations and society itself.

Agile paves the way for a great adventure of personal and professional renewal, helping us improve our existing skills and develop new ones.

Agile takes us out of our comfort zones and teaches us how to adapt to change. It enlarges our comfort zones only to take us out of it again. It’s beyond survival. It’s about self-actualisation.

Agile is about being a “forever apprentice“, someone who begins as a student and becomes a teacher while remaining a student. A forever apprentice applies the principle “the best teachers make the best students and the best students make the best teachers”.

Applying Agile

I’ve been applying Agile to what I do for some years now, from delivering projects at work to projects at home. I pack in all the practice I can get. The way I use Agile is constantly changing through improvement experiments. Always learning. Always improving.

Applying Agile and being agile has helped make work fun and engaging. Again. Do you remember the very first day of your very first job? That’s the enthusiasm and energy I strive to re-create every day. For myself and for others. Some days, I give myself a day off.

Every day’s a new day when you’re trying to be better than you were yesterday. I’m improving, one baby step at a time. Sometimes the steps are so tiny that they’re invisible to the naked eye, but I can feel it, like a new shoot about to break through the ground after rain.

I don’t like to admit it, but I know when I’m getting complacent. A little voice in my head tells me, “You’ve been there, done that, seen it all, what’s the big deal?” That’s when I sense trouble. How can I know it all and still be constantly improving? Unless I’ve stopped, of course.

Evolving Agile

When people find out that I’m an Agile Coach (one of my many roles) they tell me, “Of course you want to make everyone do Agile, you’re an Agile Coach and that’s your purpose”. To which I reply, “If we do Agile right, Agile will evolve itself out of existence and something new will appear to take its place.”

As for my purpose, it’s to create opportunities and options to help us make the most of our potential, leveraging what we’ve got and increasing it day by day. I do it for me and for us. Agile is but one tool out of many that makes this possible. It helps to get the conversation started.

What does Agile mean to you?

What our experience tells us but we ignore

What do smart people all have in common? We’re driven, focussed and hardworking. Once we have a goal, we go for it, powering through and tugging hard until we gasp, regardless of the obstacles.

“The difference between winners and losers are that winners keep trying,” we mutter to ourselves quietly in the toughest moments. And so we keep striving and straining, cursing the rope that’s holding us back.

Look around you

Now imagine you’re in a meeting. Take a look around you. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? When people come together, it’s usually to formulate a plan to reach a goal. And it’s usually something we’ve in common.

The problem is, we often become blindsided by our “own” goal. We fail to listen with an open mind. We fail to set aside our own viewpoint for long enough to see what’s as plain as the light of day. Not to mention the bale of hay behind us. And all the other bales of hay around us.

By failing to see the bigger picture, we all risk going hungry in spite of being surrounded by a wealth of resources.

See the bigger picture

To make hay while the sun shines, step into each other’s shoes. Then take a step step back together to see the big picture. This way, we can make hay together, come rain or shine.