(Over two cups of hot chocolate and a bag of chips)

TJ: Your snowman‘s wearing a hat and scarf.
P.: It’s cold out.
TJ: Snowmen like it cold.
P.: They make him look authentic.
TJ: If you believe in fairytales.
P.: We wouldn’t want him arrested for indecent exposure.

It’s been an incredible three days in London. If weather forecasts are anything to go by, London looks set to get whiter before the streets are swamped in brown slush. It’s great to be amidst such rare loveliness.

During my two hour expedition across the vast expanse of village snowiness, I go past lumps, humps and stumps. Not a single snowman to be seen. Instead, there are large deformed balls of ice, speckled brown and green. Abandoned snowman wannabees litter the peaceful landscape.

Young children with makeshift sledges (made out of storage box tops and plastic trays) are having the most fun, lying belly down as they slipstream down slope after slope. And what about those teenagers with attitude, all kitted out in their snow gear with their designer snowboards, looking too cool for cats? They remind me of the fact that even if you had all the coolest kit in the world, you can still miss out on having fun. The KISS principle in action. How much fun did you have at work today?

(At an Agile training course near you)

P.: What is “Quality”?
Student: It doesn’t matter.
P.: What do you mean?
Student: People can’t tell the difference.
P.: Can you tell the difference between stepping into a Ford Fiesta and an Aston Martin?
Student: NO.

Common Sense Goes on Holiday

This brief exchange is taken from a real life conversation. At the time, everyone else in the class was at least surprised, if not bemused, by their colleague’s curious response.

It’s a good example of how some people would rather be stubborn than right.

Riddle Me This

It’s Monday and I’m snowed in at home. As I stare out at my 4 ft snowman, I find myself wondering: ‘What sound does a snowman make?’ It strikes me as as confounding a riddle as the question: ‘What does “Quality” mean?’ To me, “Quality” isn’t just a remarkable achievement. It’s much more than what the eye can see. Especially in the world of software development.

Quality is Elemental

Whenever I work with a new team, I begin by asking them: ‘What does “Quality” mean to you?’ Using a Clustering exercise, we mine the information to get a collective answer. Their response tells me whether or not I’m working with real professionals.

From Journeyman to Master

‘I wish I’d read this book sooner!’ was my immediate response when I read Andrew Hunt and David Thomas’s The Pragmatic Programmer all those years ago. The book’s popularity is living proof that there are people who believe in Quality. Some of those people value Quality enough to do the right thing as well as do things right.

Take a look at the piece of work you’re doing at the moment. Now imagine it’s someone else’s work. That person’s come over to ask you for feedback. Does that piece of work withstand scrutiny by your team’s defintion of Quality?

Quality is much more than the result of system improvements. Make it a matter of personal and professional pride.

‘When you go into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.’

– Robert Fulghum

Let’s face it. Agile is no picnic. The problem with Agile is that it suffers from the same perception problem as Common Sense. Just because we call something Common Sense doesn’t make it Common Practice. Likewise, the Agile (XP) Values, Principles and Practices may sound simple, however, they’re anything but easy when it comes to applying them, both for the individual and for the team.

One of the most important lessons learnt I’m constantly reminded of is the effect of introducing Agile into an organisation, small, medium or large.

Agile demands we learn and improve. Many people approach learning about Agile as they would quadratic equations. Agile isn’t something you learn from a short presentation or a two day course. I think Agile takes a lifetime to master. Most important of all, saying we’re keen to learn isn’t enough. We have to be committted to changing ourselves for the better.

Words I wish I wrote

Learning to become agile is one of the greatest challenge any team or individual faces. That’s because it brings out the best in people and the worst in people. You don’t have to do it alone. You certainly shouldn’t tolerate bad behaviour. A little courage and a lot of solidarity goes a long way.

‘Kung Hei Fat Choi’ literally means ‘Wishing you health, wealth and prosperity’, so here’s wishing you Happy Chinese New Year!

One of the things I’ve always liked about Chinese New Year (and New Year celebrations from different cultures) is that it’s another chance to review and refine what Jim Collins‘ refers to as an organisation’s Hedgehog Concept. Since organisations are made up of individuals, following the principle of self-similarity, we can also apply this thinking to ourselves when it comes to defining personal success.

The Three Circles

In his book ‘From Good to Great’, Jim describes what the most successful companies in the world do as working within the boundaries of The Three Circles.

Circle 1 – Understand what you can be best at
Find out what you’re good at and, equally important, find out what you’re bad at. From this, you’ll be able to come up with two lists: a ToDo list and a STOP DOING List. According to Jim, you know you’re good at something when you think to yourself, ‘I feel I was born to do this!’

Circle 2 – Understand what drives your economic engine
Consider the economic returns on the time and effort you invest in the things you do. You know you’ve attained a deep insight and understanding into what drives your economic reality when you can identify what Jim calls your ‘single economic factor’, the single thing that increases what brings most value to you. You know your economic engine is running well when you find yourself thinking, ‘I get paid to do this?!?’

Circle 3 – Understand what you’re most passionate about
Passion cannot be manufactured. Passion is doing what makes your heart sing. Do you apply what you do at work outside of work because it’s so valuable, useful and fun to you? You know you’re passionate about something when you think to yourself, ‘I really believe in what I’m doing.’

The Hedgehog Concept

Jim describes the Hedgehog Concept as a ‘simple, crystalline idea’ based on a deep understanding of the Three Circles. Two of the hardest things to do is 1) to come up with a simple Hedgehog Concept and 2) to keep it simple. Jim also emphasises that you can only come up with a Hedgehog Concept through an iterative thought process.

Identifying your Hedgehog concept can help you gain a deeper understanding of what you want to achieve and why. How will you attain health, wealth and prosperity in 2009?

 ‘To have great poets, there must be great audiences.’ – Walt Whitman

Whitman’s quote made me think. What if we were to re-write his quote in an Agile Coaching context? It would probably read something like this: ‘To have great coaches, there must be great teams.’ Where are these great teams? More importantly, where are these great coaches? As an Apprentice Agile Coach, I’m looking because I want to learn from them.

What does Agile mean to you?

Almost everyone I meet these days say they’re agile. Increasingly often, such folks also introduce themselves as Senior Agile Coaches or Agile Experts.

For me being agile is aspirational. That’s because Agile is all about Continuous Improvement. A true Agilista is always learning. And so while I try to be agile every day, I don’t always succeed. For me, the term ‘expert’ and ‘guru’ are the antitheses to being agile. That’s because those two words imply someone who knows everything there is to know about a topic.

In my experience, the danger with being an expert or guru in something is that this usually means you’ve stopped learning. If you have to have all the right answers, you can’t be wrong. If you can’t be wrong, you don’t make mistakes. If you don’t make mistakes, you limit your learning.

Teams Beware!

Someone who is truly agile cares more about learning than they do about being right. Beware of coaches who claim they are agile, yet have to ‘win’ arguments by effectively saying ‘My way or the highway.’ That way lies a long and lonely road. Do you care enough to be a lifelong apprentice?

One of the most enlightening books I’ve ever read on management is ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There‘ by Marshall Goldsmith. This book has helped me make sense of my experience as a manager long after I stopped being one. Most importantly, it has helped me come to terms with what Continuous Improvement really means.

What got you here won’t get you there

Marshall is an executive coach who helps people change for the better. He helps people change by making visible the impact those people have on their colleagues. He believes that most of us can be cured of our bad habits by making small changes.

One of the key tools he uses is Feedback. First he points out our bad habits. Then he highlights the impact our bad habits have on our colleagues. Finally, he demonstrates how, with the slightest of ‘behavioural tweaks’, we could make everyone’s work lives so much more pleasant. 

The Success Delusion

According to Marshall, the more successful you believe you are, the harder it is for you to change. His recommendation is for us to put down our ToDo list and focus instead on our STOP DOING list. Look around you at work. Can you identify the top 3 bad habits of your most irksome colleague? And what about you? Can you recognise your top 3 bad habits?

It’s 6 am. I leap out of bed and scurry down to the gym for a run on the treadmill. When I arrive, the gym is pitch black from the outside. I swing open the door thinking, ‘Great! I’ve got the gym all to myself!’ Instead, what do I find?

Surprise! There’s a large man huffing and puffing on the treadmill, listening to his MP3 player, in the chilly dark.

‘I looked all over the place for the light switch,’ he says by way of an explanation for what must be a serious breach of health and safety – his health, his safety. ‘The heating’s not working either’, he adds as a matter-of-fact.

I give the room a quick scan, find nothing, then remember there’s a house phone by the gym entrance. Within 5 minutes, the large man is gone, an engineer’s been and I’m running in the light and warmth.

Old Habits Die Hard

Many of us adapt quicky. Too quickly. The problem comes when accommodating inconveniences becomes a habitual way of being. The most insidious thing of all is when such habits crystallise into a de facto way of living. Just think.

Chocolate anyone?

(Before the graffiti)

P.: What do you think of that poster?
Pascal: It’s reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.
P.: It doesn’t make me want to eat chocolate.
TJ: It’s just a bit of fun.

Laughter is better than medicine

I return a week later and what do I find? It appears the local youths have been busy exercising their right to free speech. Granted, I’ve never been a funny, Ha-Ha funny, kind of person. What I do instead is compensate with what I call Gentle Humour, humour that is at times amusing and always good-natured. How often do you laugh with your team?

2008: A Personal Retrospective

Things I’m most grateful for:

1. My first Agile deathmarch with a casualty of 1. Me. Lesson Learnt: Always agree on Acceptance Criteria before doing anything.
2. Learning from a diverse bunch of people: my fellow Exxies (folks from Exoftware), my client teams and especially Agilistas such as TJ, Pascal Van Cauwenberghe, Vera Peeters, Duncan Pierce, David Peterson and Simon Baker. Lesson Re-learnt: You’re only as good as the people you work with.
3. Doing 3/3: coaching, consulting and training. Lesson Learnt: Each type of activity acts as a check and balance to the other two. It’s a great way of getting a fresh perspective as well as maintaining objectivity on what you do, how you do it and, most importantly, why you do it.
4. Meeting more Social Science Heroes: Seeing Malcolm Gladwell present at the London Business Forum, hearing James Surowiecki present as keynote speaker at Agile 2008, seeing Jerry Weinberg demonstrate his consulting toolkit at AYE. Lesson Learnt: Seeing the speakers in action is one way of verifying the authenticity of what they espouse. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
5. Scoring 5/5: The chance to present The Bottleneck Game with Pascal at the same conference as Eli Goldratt and Neil Armstrong in Paris. Lesson Learnt: The biggest things that come true often start with the smallest wish.
6. Hearing Isabel Allende talk about magic realism in person as though it were real. Lesson learnt: Turning what you love into your job won’t make it a chore if you genuinely love what you do.
7. All of you for reading because it keeps me writing. A special ‘Thank You’ to Pascal, David and TJ for their candid feedback. Lesson Learnt: Things that have value must meet a need.

2009: My Wishes

• I wish to learn more in 2009 than I did 2008.
• I wish to meet Seth Godin, Tom De Marco and Dale Chihuly. I also wish to meet Eli Goldratt again.
• I wish to present the Snow White and Seven Dwarves Agile Fairytale in French in Paris.
• I wish to create a third Agile Fairytale.
• I wish to try out Agile Fairytales beyond the IT industry.
• I wish to learn more about Lean and use it more explicitly as part of my Agile Coach Toolkit.
• 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.
• I wish to create more Agile teams that endure long after the coach is gone.
• 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.
• I wish you a Happy 2009 – may it bring you all that you deserve!

Congratulations! THE BIG DAY you’ve been training for for the past 364 days will soon by upon us. It’s time to cash in on the benefit of the thousands of Agility exercises you’ve been putting into practice at work. Let’s hope all the agile flexing of both brain and brawn pays off. 

Ho! Ho! Ho! Contenders ready?

If you think Christmas Day is a day off, you’re wrong. The 25th of December is the single day of the year when most of us will be trying our hardest to be true to who we are and what we believe in. If that’s not hard work, I don’t know what is. Welcome to Ultimate Agile (also known as Christmas Day with all the family). Are you ready for Ultimate Agile?

Why not have black swan instead of turkey this year?

The problem with Christmas with the family is this: If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll only get what you’ve always got. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. The Ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future comes in the form of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, who offers us a chance to understand how we can change our fate.

‘History is opaque,’ writes Taleb, ‘You see what comes out, not the script that produces the events, the generator of history.’ Taleb identifies three ailments of the human mind whenever it comes in contact with history. He calls them the Triplet of Opacity.

The Triplet of Opacity

The Illusion of Understanding, where everyone thinks they know everything there is to know about everything when in fact they don’t

The Retrospective Distortion, how we use hindsight to explain strange and mysterious things to make-believe that we are in control

The Overvaluation of Factual Information and the Handicap of Authoritative and Learned People, how we listen to and believe in those who appear to be experts but fail to give practical answers that work beyond textbooks

Wise is she who knows she does not know

In my experience, destructive human behaviour arises out of what Taleb calls ‘agressive ignorance’, or a fear of looking stupid that is greater than the fear of being wrong. For example, being asked something to which you don’t know the right answer is the event. Agressive ignorance is the emotional response. The script invisible to the naked eye reads:

1. I know deep down that if I’m wrong, I may have to change.
2. Change requires effort which I’m not sure I can be bothered to invest.
3. The effort might go wasted if I fail.
4. If I fail to change, that makes me a failure.

So what’s the antidote?

Whenever I’m in a spot of bother, I remind myself of the Agile Values: Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect. When I feel comfortable living and breathing the first five in a given situation (Think: ‘Baby Steps’ or ‘Incremental development’), I throw in an extra two: Trust and Transparency.

For instance, before a discussion becomes a deafening shouting match, I ask myself: ‘How can I be a better communicator?’ to which my brain resourcefully volunteers a myriad of options such as ‘Listen more! Talk less. The two of you have reached an impasse, ask for help or clarification.’

The only thing most people seek at family gatherings is understanding. It’s the same at work. Why not treat your work self at home to a Christmas helping of black swan?

Merry Christmas one and all!