‘SimBlogging‘ offers a his and hers viewpoint as Pascal and Portia timebox-blog simultaneously

What Went Well

Journey to Arizona: My AYE adventure started at Terminal 5 where I met up with Pascal to fly to Phoenix, Arizona. Thanks to Julie, a Senior Customer Service Agent from British Airways, we both got upgraded to World Traveller Plus. I’ve gained considerable insight into the airline industry having worked in the industry for the past 6 months. Working with people with a passion for airplanes and travel has allowed me to experience air passenger travel with new eyes since.

Beautiful Arizona: The November weather in Arizona is glorious. The skies are a bright, clear blue and the sun simply glows. I found myself sitting outdoors in shortsleeves, basking in the shade to avoid being burnt to a crisp. Now that’s something that’s never happened to me before. Another striking thing about Arizona is the strips of carefully tended green grass. Back in London, it rains a lot by comparison and so the grass is mostly green. Here in Arizona, I find myself scanning the landscape for grass and appreciating each strip because I know someone decided to plant it there and have continued to look after it since.

The Folks at AYE: My biggest takeway from AYE is the high concentration of open and friendly participants. The number of participants was capped to 75 which gave us a chance to really mingle with the 5 organiser-trainers, Don Gray, Steve Smith, Esther Derby, Johanna Rothman and, of course, Jerry Weinberg. Most important of all, the smaller-than-average conference gathering gave the participants a chance to get to know one another better.

Agile Fairytales at AYE: Following on from Don’s friendly suggestion that we run the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Game as a Birds-of-a-Feather session at the conference, over 23 people attended the session. Pascal and I continued to play the game with other participants over the course of the conference after lunch and during dessert. It goes to show that playing at the dinner table is no bad thing!

People, People, People: For me, going to a conference is all about meeting people. My write-home-on-a-postcard characters have to be: Evan the Standup Comedian (who played a key role as the protagonist in the chaotic, yet triumphant Satir Change Model exercise), Jeremy the Magician (with his scented marker and chameleon playing cards), Chris the Aspiring Dog Whisperer (with understands dogs AND people) and Cheryl, Rob and Mark from Team Blackberry (who get to develop funky tools to help us better manage our time and ourselves).

Session Highlights:

• Go for Quality, Go for Speed: a simple yet thought-provoking game invented by Jerry based on iterating over a bag of marbles (representing a codebase) to see which team would get rid of the black marbles (bugs) to deliver a bag full of clear marbles (good code). As an observer, it was reassuring to see that the winning team’s iterative inspect-adapt approach helped achieve Quality AND Speed. Hurrah!
• Other sessions I enjoyed and learned from include: Choosing the Right Coaching Approach: Congruent Coaching, How do You Feel About Change? Experience the Satir Change Model and Just Enough Leadership.

Cultural Day Out: Of course, no conference adventure is complete without a visit to the environs. On our last day in Phoenix, Pascal and I visited the Heard Museum where we learned about the different Indian tribes in the Arizona region. We had first come across this aspect of the sad and turbulent history of America on our visit to Toronto at Agile 2008. It reminded me of the importance of learning from history because it’s only by learning from our mistakes that we stand a chance of breaking the cycle of misunderstandings and atrocities. Esther demonstrates how retrospectives are a great way of transforming our experiences into lessons learnt.

Complaints With Recommendations

• The AYE sessions I attended encouraged audience participation, but the session takeaways remained vague. It would be great to make explicit the learnings and actions from the discussions, as a group, to reinforce the lessons learnt so they can be applied more easily.
• Day 1 saw the introduction of the Myers-Briggs Indicator Type (MBTI) with everyone identifying their type. Unfortunately, some people wrote their type on their name badge and started saying things like, ‘I’m an introvert, that’s why I’m not very good at networking’. It would be more useful to emphasise a preference is just that rather than who you are. That’s because we can all learn the less preferred behaviour to become more congruent.
• The only session to hold a retrospective was the Agile Fairytale Mirror, Mirror BoF. It would be great to apply the Agile practice for all sessions as a way to get feedback from participants to help improve them.
• I wish I’d spent more time chatting and sharing with other participants outside of the sessions. I could start or continue a conversation by email of course!
• I wish I’d seen more of Arizona and its exotic fauna – nothing beats a bit of funky cacti against blue sky. I suggest hiring a car and doing a bit of a road trip next time!

Last night saw the largest gathering ever to attend Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me?, an Agile Fairytale session on improving personal effectiveness, created by adults for everyone. More than 20 people converged to learn how to create their own happy endings on Day 2 of the AYE Conference in sunny Phoenix, Arizona.

Rediscovering the lessons we learnt as children but have since forgotten

We began the session with a speed retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves – a story of murder, intrigue, passion, poisoned apples and, of course, an Evil Queen. It was great to see sceptic-looking faces brighten with smiles as the story unfolded. The room soon filled with laughter at the thought of Sneezy being a friendly kind of dwarf who’s creatively efficient because he’s allergic to work.

You can read more about the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Game here. The game and all related materials are freely available under the Creative Commons license. You can also download the game and play it for free* with your team, family and friends.

If you’re an avid Agile Fairytale game player, you can read about the experience of your British Agile Fairytale counterparts and see how they fared.

Making Money with Agile Fairytale Projects

The highlight of the evening had to be the project pitches as each of the three teams presented their project proposition, outlining their project’s goal, its deadline and a team staffed with Agile Fairytale characters.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Who’s the fairest of them all?

Many thanks to everyone who attended! The overwhelming enthusiasm of the participants was a sure sign that Pascal and I were among folks who take responsibility for ourselves by continuously seeking to improve.

Heartfelt Lessons Learnt by the Group

• The only person we can change is ourselves.
• Everyone has value.
• Stop being a misanthrope: we should appreciate people more.
• By looking at what we think of others, we can learn about ourselves.
• It’s up to us as individuals to take responsibility in a relationship.

One participant declared, ‘I can see how the game can be a catalyst for team building. I’m going to play it with my team the moment I get home!’

Agile Fairytales coming to a place near you

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me? will be showing next at XP Days Benelux later on this month. The Agile Benelux contingent are world-renowned for their sense of fun, so I’m looking forward to what promises to be a most excellent European mini-adventure of self-discovery.

*The Snow White and Seven Dwarves Game is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK license.

If I could only attend one Agile conference this year, it would have to be XP Days Benelux 2008 because:

1. It’s created by Agilistas for Agilistas.
2. It attracts genuine practitioners of Agile.
3. It’s organised in an Agile way.
4. First time speakers are given priority over more well-known or experienced presenters to encourage knowledge and experience sharing within the Agile community.
5. Presenters mingle 100% with participants beginning with the conference opening dinner.
6. The Games Night promises to be V. SPECIAL.
7. Everyone understands that the most effective learning and innovation comes from having fun.

The tickets are selling like hot cakes, so buy yours soon if you enjoy hunting werewolves while sipping beers brewed by Dutch monks!

My Top Picks

Presenters I’ve met and heard lots about, but have yet to see in action:

• The Best Way to Introduce Agile by Nicole Belilos
• Agile Metrics by Dave Nicolette

Sessions that look especially intriguing:

• Critical Chain by Christophe Thibault and Olivier Pizzato
• Coaching Self-Organising Teams by Joseph Pelrine and Ben Fuchs
• Both sides of the story! Go out and motivate people to make exciting changes by Gino Marckx and Bernard Vander Beken – I helped out with the 9 Boxes presented by Bernard and Pascal at XPDay France earlier this year. No doubt Gino and Bernard are a combo to be seen to be believed!

Sessions I’m looking forward to co-presenting:

• Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me? – Pascal and I will be presenting this at a conference for the third time this year and it just gets more and more fun!
• The Business Value Game by Vera and Pascal – My first ever conference was XPDay London 2004 where I played the XP Game run by Vera and Pascal. It’s a real honour to be co-presenting with these two!

At an Agile Conference

Agilista: A top Agile presenter always has a ‘thing’.
P.: Really? Like some kind of disease perhaps?
Agilista: (Rolls his eyes) No, something that makes them special.
P.: Ah. (Long pause) I tell Agile Fairytales.
Agilista: I’m being serious you know.
P.: So am I.

Agile Fairytales Hits the Mainstream

This Tuesday evening marked another of Agile Firsts. It was the first time for me to run an Agile Fairytale on client site. Agile Fairytales helps us remember the lessons we learned as children but have since forgotten. Who knows? Perhaps this event heralds the start of Agile Fairytales going mainstream after its first appearance at XPDay London 2007.

A Laugh a Minute

Fifteen of us bundled into a sleek, glass-walled meeting room to transform it only moments later into the play space for Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me? You can read more about the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Game here. You can also download the game and play it for free* with your team, family and friends.

Having Fun is Serious Work

Many of the participants described the session as fun and full of laughter. The highlight for everyone was the chance to mingle with colleagues we had never met before, tasked with assembling a project team with a tangible goal and deadline. And the twist? We had to staff our projects with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, all the time leveraging their strengths, recognising the value everyone brings to a team, warts and all.

And they all lived happily ever after…

Many thanks to the game players for their invaluable session feedback in exchange for Haribo Tangfastics and marshmallows. “Thanks!” to Natasha, Graham, Jo, Bhavna, Lissa, Ashutosh, Neeraj, Bruce, Chi, Nick, Ponvizhi, Sanjeev, Suresh and, of course, Andy.

Agile Fairytales Coming to a Place Near You

If you want to learn how to become a more effective team player and team builder, come play The Snow White and Seven Dwarves Game at AYE and XPDays Benelux. I look forward to seeing you there!

*The Snow White and Seven Dwarves Kanban game is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK license.

‘To some, responsibility is a burden. To others, responsibility is a reward. For many, responsibility means having someone to point to.’

– Christopher Avery

It was great to finally meet Christopher Avery at the Agile Business Conference this Wednesday. His presentation on the Responsibility Model, delivered in person, was every bit as insightful and entertaining as I hoped it would be.

‘Humans are born to learn’

According to Christopher, Responsibility has long been considered as a character trait. Or, depending on your view of the world, a character flaw.

Newsflash: Responsibility is neither a character trait nor flaw. Christopher describes Responsibility as the way you respond to a problem. Responsibility is completely subjective. It’s also a feeling. This is why Responsibility is so difficult to talk about.

For me, the most effective way of thinking about Responsibility is to compare it with Accountability. According to Christopher, delegating Accountability is the first tool of management. It’s a one-sided agreement-making process in which one individual beholdens another regardless of whether or not that individual accepts the responsibility that has been thrust upon them.

Responsibility, on the other hand, empowers an individual by giving each of us the choice to acknowledge then embrace the uncertainty surrounding our lives and to do something about it.

Redefining Responsibility

There are six progressive phases in the Responsibility Model:

1. Denial – ‘Problem? What problem? There’s no problem.’
2. Blame – ‘I don’t have a problem working with you. You seem to have a problem with me. That makes it your problem. ‘
3. Justify – ‘I guess it’s possible that I’ve become insensitive to other people’s feelings and needs. I can’t help it though. After all, I’ve been doing this job for a long time. It’s who I am.’
4. Shame – ‘What have I done? I’m going to look such an idiot in front of the people at work. How am I going to live it down? Why should they help me after the way I’ve behaved?’
5. Obligation – ‘Tell me what you think I should do. I have no choice but to do it (even though I don’t want to). I’ll do whatever you say. It’s only a job after all (no one can expect to do a job they love).’
6. Responsibility – ‘I can wait for them to change but that could take forever. No, it’s up to me. I want to fix the problem. So how am I going to be a better colleague? I know! I’ll listen more. And be more considerate towards others. It’s a start.’

Taboo Who?

Embrace responsibility. Instead of skirting around it, talk about it. Practice moving through the 6 phases of the Responsibility Model. Help each other spot when one of you become stuck in a particular phase. The key to continuous improvement are what Christopher has identified as the Keys of Responsibility.

The Keys of Responsibility

1. Intention – Commit to doing or stop doing something.
2. Awareness – Learn to recognise when you are in each of the 6 phases. Look out for how you feel in each of those phases. Use the feeling to help you recognise which phase you’re in and evaluate why you feel that way you so that you can move onto the next phase towards Responsibility.
3. Confront – Face the truth head on. It’s sounds simple, but it’s not easy. How honest are you with yourself?

‘SimBlogging‘ offers a his and-hers-viewpoint as Pascal and Portia timebox-blog simultaneously

Rough Guide to Toronto

• Darwin at the Royal Ontario Museum – the story of Darwin as a curious young man seeking to better understand the world around him which has helped us to better understand ourselves
• Casa Loma – a dream come true for one man whose wife was the Head of the Girl Scouts
• Niagara on the Lake – where shops like Just Christmas are frequented by locals and tourists every day of the year
• Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls – THE best wet ride I’ve been on in one of Nature’s most beautiful amusement parks

Agile 2008

• ‘Bimbo Slides‘ – for describing presentations that look good but have a conflicting message when the volume’s turned up
• ‘Lego Moment‘ – describes a moment in time when you realise a missing piece in your experience you never knew you lacked or needed to complete a task at hand

Chilling Out and Staying Cool

• Chez Gino’s – an impromptu home-cooked lunch in the red light district served by a charming Belgian Agile coach in Toronto
• Potted Canadian history in 30 minutes – a compelling account of 400 years of Canadian history in 30 minutes on indigenous people from Allison over a tasty sushi lunch
• Pairing on Mission Dress Smart – where two Agile coaches practice giving feedback to one another on the most subjective and volatile of topics
• Dinner with Ben – meeting Christophe Thibault’s other half (binôme) at a restaurant called the Queen Mother’s

Looking into the Mirror

• Strangers to ourselves – where we ask: Mirror, Mirror on the wall – if I can only change myself and everyone has value, how can I become better?
• Playing with strangers – Playing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves game as a fun networking exercise where everyone gets to take a good look at themselves in the mirror
• Learning about business value – Learning to see where the value is and prioritising the backlog using various strategies by playing The Business Value Game

Les Neuf Cases aka The Nine Boxes

• Running a session in French and English – Les Neuf Cases (The Nine Boxes) helped bring together participants with a common interest in learning how to get the questions right in order to ask the right questions
• Bilingual session preparation – in which Pascal and Portia have fun preparing for a dramatisation of what happens when folks discover the customer’s need by asking the right questions

Value-Driven Presenters

• Ice cream and tasty cupcakes – meeting people who are passionate about learning new things and know that the best way to learn is through fun and games
• Show me the money – helping out at the sneak preview of the Business Value game created by Pascal and Vera, the pair who brought you the ubiquitous XP Game
• Doing not just talking – the best sessions at the conference were those offering practical techniques such as Mike Cohn’s ‘Prioritising the Product Backlog’ and Christian and Christoph’s ‘Conflict Resolution Diagram’ from the Theory of Constraints Thinking Tools
• Mini celebrations – whenever participants found our sessions useful and relevant so that everyone can become a little more agile every day

Agile 2008 – Day 1

Pascal and I pair-present a session on improving personal effectiveness called Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me?The session begins with an Agile re-telling of the fairytale favourite Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Think storytime à la Tarantino for adults. We got a round of applause for the storytelling and many participants left the session with new insights about themselves.

Dramatis Personae

• Snow White – team player, works hard, naive
• Evil Queen – gets things done, power-hungry, manipulative
• Hunter – disciplined, practical, mercenary
• Doc – knowledgeable, solution-focussed, arrogant
• Bashful – sensitive to others’ needs, quiet, dislikes conflict
• Sleepy – entertaining, easily distracted, difficult to motivate
• Sneezy – friendly, creatively efficient, allergic to work
• Happy – positive, motivated, can ignore problems
• Dopey – enthusiastic, lacks discipline, lacks attention to detail
• Grumpy – analytical, critical, poor communicator

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Game – Part 1

Now we begin our journey of self-discovery through a cycle of personal judgment, reflection, introspection and action. Let’s take Snow White as an example.

1. Personal judgment: Does Snow White remind you on anyone? Give examples of why you think they remind you of Snow White.
2. Reflection and introspection – ‘Looking into the Mirror’: Why do you think what you think about that person? What does what you think about them say about you?
3. Action: What are some actions you can take to improve your understanding of that person? What’s the smallest thing you can do to improve your relationship with them? Pick one action and do it.

Agile Coach’s #1 Secret to Great Teamwork

We cannot change others. We can only change ourselves.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Game – Part 2

We assemble a fairytale project team. Everyone dreads drawing the Evil Queen card because although the Evil Queen gets things done, she’s also power hungry and manipulative. As in real life, we have to find ways to best leverage the skills, experience and interests of every member of our team. Agile is about facing challenges head on and fostering human potential.

Agile Coach’s #2 Secret to Great Teamwork

Everyone has value.

Go, Go, Gameplay

You can play the game for free. All Agile Fairytale materials will be available online soon under the Creative Commons licence. Why not define your own happy ending today?

The most striking thing about Toronto is its people. It’s a place where diversity is reflected in every face in the crowd, from groups of friends to couples and families. Walking along Queen St on a Saturday afternoon gives me hope. Here is a community that realises the sociological, cultural and cognitive evolution that Gene Rodenberry envisioned.

The Bizarre and the Marketplace

With over 1500 attendees, Agile 2008 is the largest collective of Agilistas I’ve ever seen under one roof. In typical Torontonian fashion, its diversity is represented by more than 400 sessions across 19 tracks in just 4 days. The variety of sessions makes for interesting reading, but I find myself constantly wondering what I’m missing out on. Sometimes too many options is a bad thing when their cost outweigh their value.

Group Smarts

The key attraction for me was James Surowiecki author of The Wisdom of Crowds. James asserts that ‘groups of people can be remarkably intelligent’. He believes that crowd intelligence improves the closer they are to the ground.

According to James, hierarchies are a problem because they create incentives for people to conceal information, to do what their bosses want, to game the system. The result: a flawed information system.

Dream Team

James reiterates that the secret to teamwork is collaboration. First we assemble a team of appropriate people, then we create the right conditions.

Quality collective work requires three ingredients:

• Aggregation – so that deliverables reflect group judgment to smooth the fluctuations in information quality
• Diversity – cognitive diversity is what makes a group smarter – sociological diversity isn’t enough
• Individuality – because people facing the same direction don’t realise when they make the same mistakes

I dare you defy mediocrity. Trust in the group smarts of your team.

Eliyahu Goldratt is an angry old man. He’s not that old per se, but he is surprisingly angry for someone who’s been making his fortune from IT since the early 80s.

Goldratt is best known as the originator of the Theory of Constraints. He was one of the impressive trio of guest star speakers at Université du SI in Paris last week (the other two being French philosopher Michel Serre and the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong). To my surprise, Goldratt was the wildcard of the bunch.

What got us here won’t get us there

‘Technology should give us unbelievable results,’ began Goldratt as a matter-of-fact. ‘Why is it then that we have such amazing processing power and no astonishing results?’ he demanded of the developers, Agilists and academics before him.

According to Goldratt, each organisation is haemorrhaging to death because of a clot in its processes. Organisations existed before computers, therefore the limitations we’re experiencing existed before computers.

The problem is that the old rules for getting things done were based on localised islands of information because that used to be all the information available at the time. Now that the game has changed, the rules aren’t just out-of-date, they’re wrong.

An even bigger problem is that the antiquated rules become set in stone when they are reincarnated as a software system. The result: we make more mistakes faster which result in spiralling costs and inevitable failure if we don’t revise the rules first.

J’accuse!

Unlike Michel Serre, who employed pure rhetoric to make a similar point about making the most of one’s ability, Goldratt chose to lambast IT professionals for being irresponsible and ineffective.

According to Goldratt, as IT professionals, we’re creating our own boundary and limiting the success of our organisation. He urged us to go beyond our comfort zone and stretch ourselves beyond our immediate expertise. Goldratt demands we take responsibility for our organisation.

Lost in Translation

After Pascal and I ran our session to demonstrate the Theory of Constraints, a young man came up to me and asked about the relevance of our session at such a technical conference. I remember asking myself the same question after attending the same session at XPDay London run by Pascal several years ago.

‘Because a developer can’t deliver business value through coding alone,’ I replied in French. ‘By understanding how to improve the way your team works at both local and global perspectives, you can help improve your organisation’s throughput by applying the Theory of Constraints.’

The School of Tough Love

Goldratt concluded that, in his experience, people are much better than we think. It only takes one person to change before others follow suit or risk losing out altogether.

According to Goldratt, the way to achieve an easy life is to take a hammer to your head whereupon you’ll be spoonfed for the rest of your life. Goldratt says: Demand more of yourself. What will you choose to do?

Lucky Number 3

I’m back in Paris this week, loaded with three kilograms of British sweets for distribution, ready to co-present three action-packed sessions on the Theory of Contraints with Pascal Van Cauwenberghe (co-inventor of the XP Game). It’s also going to the third time I’ll be co-presenting with Pascal at a conference this year.

A l’aide mon processus m’étrangle

Pascal and I will be running the session twice at Université du SI. Also present will be Eliyahu Goldratt, Bjarne Stroustrup and Neil Armstrong. Physics meets Computer Science meets Consultancy meets Space meets Philsophy meets Humanity. Wowser.

First Things First

We’ll be kickstarting a week-long intense learning and collaboration endeavour by presenting the Theory of Constraints session at the XP France usergroup in Paris tonight. I’m very much looking forward to catching up with the usual friendly bunch of Francophone Agilistas!