The snow arrived in London several hours later than predicted and by bedtime last night, many of the suburban roads were covered, including some sleeping policemen. The good news is that London has been transformed, yet again, into a place of beauty, with all its carbuncles and pimples smoothed over by Nature’s white collagen.

London’s Learning

The better news is that London’s learning. This second time around we managed to stock up enough grit, mobilised the various gritting units in time and by early evening last night, most of the roads were gritted, to the relief of drivers and pedestrians alike. There’s also enough food in my cupboard in case of a snow-in.

Prepare to Enjoy!

The result? We can enjoy the snow this time around instead of seeing it as an impediment or disaster. A classic example of the Girl Scouts’ motto in action: ‘Be prepared!’ – intended to be an instruction, warning and wake-up call. By being prepared, we can turn obstacles into challenges, adversity into opportunity, strife into collaborative achievement. The trick is to train hard and ‘Be prepared!’ What do you do to keep your tools sharp and varied?

Do you love what you do?

Percy: Do you think it’s possible to do what you love and get paid for it?
Agile Coach: Of course.
Percy: But work’s just work. You show up then you go home.
Agile Coach: What do you do inbetween?
Percy: You get on with stuff. It’s madness to think people could do a job they love!
Agile Coach: I think it’s madness to do otherwise.

Worthwhile Work

I’m inspired by a vision of people making the most of their time at work. By this, I mean transforming the workplace into a place where people get excited about being there, are fully engaged and are thoroughly enjoying themselves. And, of course, we always strive to work a sustainable pace.

Why? Because we each of us spend around 75% of our waking hours doing something work-related or being at work. That’s a lot of time to simply fritter away. What an awful waste of life! Imagine all the other things you could be doing instead.

Now if you were to enjoy yourself during those hours, think of the things you and your team could achieve. Think of the possibilities! And since we spend the majority of our lives doing something work-related or being at work, it follows that a fulfilling work life leads to a happier life. This is my inner quest.

The light’s on, but is anybody home?

According to Lynda Gratton, author of Glow, Each of us can make a real difference through our behaviour, competencies and skills. Linda defines ‘Glow’ as people ‘radiating positive energy – [are] able to excite and ignite others and through their inspiration and innovation are able to create superior value and success in the workplace’.

People who Glow, according to Lynda’s research, are those who have mastered 3 distinct areas of their life:

• They Glow because they have built deeply trusting and cooperating relationships with others.
• They Glow because they have extended their networks beyond the obvious to encompass the unsual.
• They Glow because they are on an inner quest that ignites their own energy and that of others.

People who Glow also understand what they have to do in 3 different contexts: as an individual, as a team member and as a member of an organisation that encourages them to Glow.

Now that you’ve packed away the Christmas lights, isn’t it your time to Glow?

Highlights of 2009

It’s been a tremendous year! Here’s my whirlwind tour down Memory Lane 2009:

• Pairing: Beyond Programming by John Daniels and Dave Cleal at SPA 2009 – What a fun-filled and meaningful session!
• Flirting with your Customers by Jenni Dow and Ole Jepsen at Agile 2009 which reminded me of the importance of listening ans respect to create rapport and understanding.
• Barcamp London – What a fantastic and diverse Open Space conference!
• The hospitality of the teams with whom I’ve had the honour to work with and learn from. A B-I-G Thank You to you all!
• The warm welcome from the organisers and participants at a myriad of Agile conferences including Agile 2009, XPDay Switzerland, Integrating Agile, ScanAgile and of course XP Days Benelux!
• Releasing the almost-new and much improved Agile Fairytale: The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching which many found helpful for resolving conundrums at work.
• Releasing experiential training courses based on the R & D efforts from our games and conference sessions!

Followup on My Wishes from 2009

To Do

• ‘I wish to meet Seth Godin, Tom De Marco and Dale Chihuly. I also wish to meet Eli Goldratt again.’ I look forward to hearing Seth Godin speak live in April 2010!
• ‘I wish to try out Agile Fairytales beyond the IT industry.’ I look forward to introducing the Agile Fairytales to people and places such as teachers and students in schools!

In Progress

• ‘I wish to create a third Agile Fairytale.’ Two new Agile Fairytales are being developed as you read this: Pinocchio – On Becoming a Lean Leader (for SPA 2010) and The Emperor’s New Clothes – Meaningful Interactions in Stressful Situations (submitted to XP 2010).

Done!

• ‘I wish to learn more in 2009 than I did 2008.’ I learnt that the best way to keep learning is with a little help from my friends! I also re-learnt that I need to be more patient and respectful to others and with myself.
• ‘I wish to present the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Agile Fairytale in French in Paris.’ We ran the session partly al fresco at XPDay France on a fine Spring day in Paris!
• ‘I wish to collaborate with Agilistas such as Pascal and Vera to create A-W-E-S-O-M-E Agile games that help us all become a bit more agile every day.’ Pascal was one of the many people who helped to make the new release of The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching possible!

Ongoing

• ‘I wish to learn more about Lean and use it more explicitly as part of my Agile Coach Toolkit.’ I’ll continue to consult and coach using Lean as the basis of enduring change. Presenting The Toyota Way with Pascal has helped us to explain how we apply Lean when we work with teams.
• ‘I wish to create more Agile teams that endure long after the coach is gone.’ I’ve helped to coach a number of teams and seen them flourish and learnt a lot along the way.
• ‘I wish to receive requests from you, the Reader, on questions you want answers to and the reasons why you need an answer. Think Selfish Programming: The Radio Request Blog.’ Thank You! for all your candid feedback on this blog. I look forward to more feedback in 2010!

I feel under the weather. May be it’s just a passing chill I’ve caught. Truth be told, I’ve not been feeling my usual cheery self of late. I just don’t feel right.

But that’s enough about me. How have you been? How are you feeling? May be you’re a bit fed up with it all. Are there times when you wish you had more money? Or may be you dream of being revered by the masses? Perhaps you wish you could hide the signs of ageing? If your answer is ‘Yes’ to at least one of these 3 questions, then I have some bad news. You may have contracted Affluenza, the nastiest of viruses to be sweeping the English-speaking world. Don’t worry though. We have plenty for company.

A Society Under the Weather?

According to Oliver James, author of Affluenza, the Affluenza virus is defined by a pre-occupation with money. The Affluenza virus values consist of Money, Possession, Physical and Social Appearances and Fame. The virus is the product ‘Selfish Capitalism’ and leads to emotional distress such as anxiety and depression. This emotional distress, in true consumerism ‘Compete-by-Eating-Your-Own-Convenience’ style, further feeds your hunger for Selfish Capitalism. Selfish Capitalism, in turn, magnifies your preoccupation with the virus values. And hey presto! That’s how this vicious cycle keeps going and growing.

But wait! Before you despair because you’ve been lying awake at night wondering why you’ve been feeling so glum about life as you know it, there’s Hope.

Be Brave, Be Bold

Hope comes in the form of returning to the basics. It’s about addressing everyman’s fundamental needs to lead a fulfilling life.

• Feel secure. About who you are and what you have.
• Be authentic. Be yourself and be true to yourself.
• Be autonomous. Do what you love. And do more of it – even if it means you go solo.
• Feel competent. Have confidence in your own abilities. Get in the practice to help that confidence grow.
• Be part of a community. Participate and contribute. Have fun in great company.

Vaccines

Oliver James recommends the following:

1. Have positive volition (not ‘Think Positive’)
2. Replace Virus Motives (with intrinsic ones)
3. Be Beautiful (not attractive)
4. Consume what you need (not what the advertisers tell you)
5. Meet your children’s needs (not those of little adults)
6. Educate your children (don’t brainwash them)
7. Enjoy motherhood (not desperate housewifery/husbandry)
8. But authentic (not sincere), vivacious (not hyperactive) and playful (not game-playing)

Antidotes

If, like me, you’re one of the infected, you need to act fast. Get lots of fresh air. Do more physical exercise. Burn off as many calories as you consume. Do at least one thing you love every day. And, as a friend just reminded me, take stock of all that you have and be thankful for such riches.

How will you transform this winter’s discontent? What will you do to make yours a life less ordinary? Make 2010 a Happy New Year!

London has been one big ice rink since Monday. After lots of rain, a few rays of sunshine and even more rain, the lovely white snow is finally trickling away as muddy slush today. Lucky really, since a white Christmas would have led to many celebrating Christmas alone. Imagine the numerous Christmas presents that would have been left unopened! Think of the mounds of brussel sprouts left to go cold!

The Gift of the Present

Thanks to the adverse weather (snow in winter, who would have thought?), the usual sprawl of seasoned shoppers has been tranformed into units of special forces of gift givers. These gift givers are prepared to travel near and far to obtain gifts of value, ranging from socks and gadgets to timeless kitsch.

As I trundle through the snow and slush, I notice how everything moves in slow motion. The slowness gives me time to live in the moment, to take in the white landscape in spite of the damp and cold. Instead of hurrying and scurrying, I am Here. Instead of being dragged down by the Past or distracted by the Future, I am in the Present. Things are somehow easier and within moments I have accomplished what had seemed like Mission Impossible even in the best of weather: I have a sackful of valuable gifts for the ones I love.

This is the same experience my teams and I go through when we apply the principle of ‘If you’re rushing, slow down’. With baby steps, we move forward, placing one foot in front of the other. We deal with impediments as they come up, prioritising them and removing them one a time. Before you know it, we’re making good progress, better than we’ve ever done before. And that’s how we turn each Mission Impossible into Mission Most Possible.

Make the Most of Now

Be in the Present. Learn from the Past. Create the Future. That’s the advice from Spencer Johnson, author of ‘The Present‘. According to Spencer, by focusing on the task at hand, you become fully engaged in the present which leads to higher quality work which, in turn, leads to greater personal satisfaction and success. And there’s your virtuous cycle in motion.

So as the holiday season begins, slow down. Give the Gift of the Present. To you and your loved ones.

“Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow-follow-follow-follow, follow the Yellow Brick Road!’

Go, Go, Go!

You’ve been following the blog entries as The Yellow Brick Road session has been touring around Europe. Finally – the wait is over. Treat yourself to  The Yellow Brick Road Game and play it with your colleagues, friends and family! Download it here and let me know what you think. ‘Thank You!’ in advance for your gift of feedback.

A Week in the Life of an Agile Coach Who Keeps Learning

With Agile, the learning never stops. A good example of this is the marathon of new training courses we launched at emergn last week:

Monday: Agile Overview – a 1-day course that provides participants with enough knowledge to begin applying Agile at work (including emergn’s version of the ubiquitous XP Game by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and Vera Peeters). We strongly recommend participants of other courses to attend the Agile overview first to establish a common understanding among all participants of what Agile is and what being agile really means. Judging by the feedback from the participants, this is an effective way of developing a meaningful understanding of Agile.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Customer Value Analysis – a 2-day course that combines Business and Systems Analysis techniques to consistently translate business goals into a steady and valuable stream of detailed User Stories and Acceptance Criteria. Instead of retrospectively mining value from what I call a ‘vomit of user stories’ (which inevitably results in perpetual backlog grooming), we pull stories from value to achieve Value-Driven Delivery.

Thursday and Friday: Agile Project Management – a 2-day course that provides an interactive experience of tools and techniques for tracking project progress (such as Real Options Thinking) and enabling personal and team growth (such as the Theory of Constraints).

Training Delight

The truth is, we have lots of fun creating and delivering the courses and judging by the feedback from many of the participants, they not only have fun but learn a great deal about Agile and personal development in the process. You only have to look at their faces to see that everyone is doing the best they can to improve.

The best thing of all is what goes into the training courses we create. We’ve taken our collective experience from working as Agile Consultant-Coaches in a myriad of organisations plus our experience as conference presenters, sprinkled in a dash of innovation and creativity and voilà, emergn training courses based on experiential learning to amplify each participant’s learning experience.

My Takeaway

As an emergn coach and trainer, I strive to apply the following 3 principles:

• Everyone adds value.
• You can only change yourself.
• Invest in people, invest in yourself.

One of the participants quoted golf player Arnold Palmer as saying, ‘The more I practice, the luckier I get.’ If that’s true, then I’m in luck. My acceptance criteria as a trainer for each course I deliver is that I learn at least as much as the participants. True learning demands an equal exchange of knowledge and experience.

Appreciations

Many thanks to the participants for their enthusiasm and pursuit for Continuous Improvement – for themselves and for their teams. We wish everyone  Happy Continuous Learning!

More Learning in the New Year

We’re in the process of drawing up the emergn training schedule for 2010. If you want to make work fun and worthwhile, we look forward to meeting you at one of our courses in 2010!

Agile Fairytales in London

Inspired by the enthusiasm of many Agilists for games, learning and fairytales, we’ll be playing an almost-new and much-improved version of ‘The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption Through Peer Coaching’ at the XP Day conference in London this Tuesday afternoon – the place where the session was first delivered back in 2007!

According to Douglas Squirrel, a regular at XP Day London and also a player of the first version, he continues to peer coach with Simon Woolf to this day because of the game.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

The Yellow Brick Road is the difficult path Dorothy takes towards the Emerald City to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz to help her get home. Swap your bit part for a major role in the Agile re-telling of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for your organisation. Let your companions and other characters help you tap into the resources you’ve always had but never realised to complete your quest for a more Agile organisation.

The Yellow Brick Road is Coming Home

I first co-presented The Yellow Brick Road with Duncan Pierce back at XPDay 2007. Since then, the concept of Agile Fairytales have travelled around the world, appearing at SPA 2008, Agile 2008, AYE 2008, XP Days Benelux 2008 and XP Day France 2009. Read more about the session here.

We only have room for 12, so come early for your place on our trip to see the Wizard!

Appreciations

Many thanks once again to Dyan, Maria, Alissa, Ben, Paul, Steven and Pascal for all their feedback at the dry run of The Yellow Brick Road Game back in November. Your input has been invaluable to the latest version of the game. T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U!

And a BIG Thanks! to the 30 participants at XP Days Benelux on 27 November for playing The Yellow Brick Road Game!

Forthcoming Release of The Yellow Brick Road Game

The long awaited almost-new and much-improved game will be released later on this week under the Creative Commons Share-Alike-By-Attribution licence at www.agilefairytales.com. Watch this blog for more news on the release!

Pascal and I will be presenting The Toyota Way Management Principles for Sustained Lean and Agile at XP Days Benelux this Monday. We’ve presented this session twice this year, once at Integrating Agile and once at Scan Agile. The presentation has received great feedback – including feedback from Tom Poppendieck at Scan Agile.

We’ll be sharing insights and lots of stories based on our experiences with real teams. We’ll show you how we apply our interpretation of the Toyota Way to achieve Respect for People and Continuous Improvement. Come to this session if you’re interested in learning how to create happy teams who do inspired work!

‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Follow-follow-follow-follow, follow the Yellow Brick Road!’

We’re off to see the Wizard

A bunch of us are off to Brussels next Sunday for XP Days Benelux 2009 (23 – 24 November). The program is jampacked with even greater sessions than last year. Now that’s what I call Continuous Improvement in action.

Somewhere over the Rainbow

I’ll be presenting another game from the Agile Fairytales series: The Yellow Brick Road – Agile Adoption through Peer Coaching. I first co-presented The Yellow Brick Road with Duncan Pierce back at XPDay 2007. Since then, the concept of Agile Fairytales have travelled around the world, appearing at SPA 2008, Agile 2008, AYE 2008, XP Days Benelux 2008 and XP Day France 2009.

Inspired by the enthusiasm of many Agilists for games, learning and fairytales, there’s now an almost-new and much-improved version of The Yellow Brick Road!

The Name of the Game

The Yellow Brick Road is the difficult path Dorothy takes towards the Emerald City to find the mysterious Wizard of Oz to help her get home. Swap your bit part for a major role in the Agile re-telling of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for your organisation. Let your companions and other characters help you tap into the resources you’ve always had but never realised to complete your quest for a more Agile organisation.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

The goal of the Yellow Brick Road Game is to gain fresh insights on a problem you face by looking at it from different perspectives. The overall goal of the session is give you the opportunity to put peer coaching into practice.

By alternating between the roles of Dorothy (the person being coached), the Coach and the Observer, you will practice 4 key coaching skills: Questioning, Observing, Listening and Feedback.

Read more about the session here. Find your Somewhere-over-the-Rainbow at next week’s XP Days Benelux. Hope to see you there!

Appreciations

Many thanks to Dyan, Maria, Alissa, Ben, Paul, Steven and Pascal for all their feedback at the dry run of The Yellow Brick Road Game earlier this month. Your input has been invaluable to the latest version of the game. T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U!