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Q: Why Silence? A: Priming.
I’m a big fan of using silent brainstorming in order to generate ideas as individuals before processing those ideas as a group. “Priming” is yet another reason why using silence is important. I’m currently reading Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” – a behavioural psychology and economics book that describes his research on how … Continue reading
Facilitating a retrospective with 50 people in an hour
As one of the volunteers at Agile 2012 I was honoured to be asked to facilitate the volunteer retrospective. There were a few constraints that made this retrospective challenging. First, due to our volunteer responsibilities we had just under an hour to eat lunch and complete the retrospective. Second, there are about 50 volunteers – … Continue reading
In pursuit of better, not best
I realize that many of you already scowl when you hear anyone talk about ‘best practices’. Instead of adding to that discussion, I’d like to share a short story with you about someone who influenced me to keep looking for better and to never assume that I’ve reached ‘best.’ I can still picture Mr. Loewen … Continue reading
Thoughts on Beyond Deadlines by Jabe Bloom
Background In late 2012 when Dylan Smith suggested a blog challenge in order to encourage each of us to write more often, I quickly agreed. I don’t find it easy to write but I love the thought process that goes into it and I was hopeful that some extrinsic motivation ($ and deadlines) would help … Continue reading
It’s the system, not (and?) the people.
I live and work with two phrases in my head that are important to me: “It’s the system, not the people” – Deming And, paradoxically: “It’s all about the people” – a statement heard often at Protegra that we try to use to guide how we work together. An event this weekend helped me to … Continue reading
San Jose Budget Games 2013
“Whatever is the problem, community is the answer” – Margaret J. Weatley. I’ve been reading some of Margaret’s writings this week and her words have been ringing in my ears as I remember participating as a volunteer facilitator in the 3rd annual San Jose Budget Games on January 26. Somewhere close to 200 community leaders, … Continue reading
How to Prioritize a User Story Map
At the Agile 2012 conference, Serena Software surveyed attendees about their biggest agile challenge. Here was the top answer: I don’t know how accurate their results are but prioritizing customer demand was certainly a challenge for me on my first “agile” project. We created a backlog with some pretty large user stories including “Search for … Continue reading
Golden Nuggets from the Innovation Games Summit
My friend Chad Holdorf describes golden nuggets as those practical things you learned from a conference that you can use on Monday at work. After attending the Innovation Games Summit this week in Santa Clara here are six golden nuggets I’d like to share with you: 1. Many of the attendees at my Silence of Agile … Continue reading
Kanban At Home
As Jen mentioned in a previous post, kanban has crept into our home. Here is a quick post to tell you how we build our board, how we use it, and the results. While some families create a permanent board, we’ve found that temporary boards serve us well. If you stop by some Saturday morning … Continue reading
Tips for Facilitating a User Story Mapping Session
In an earlier post I described how to create a user story map. Here are a few additional tips that you might find helpful. Tip #1. Silent Brainstorming isn’t mandatory. While using silent brainstorming is great for creating a map, you don’t always need to use it. Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation … Continue reading
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