Have a look at stuff around like Development Principles or Extreme Programming Explained and let me know what you think or what I can change or add to the principles that we believe in. Not sure I grouped it right, maybe need some help here.

I also thought about things we value like communication, trust, energy, fun, innovation, etc. But that might be something different.

“We’ll never make it out alive.”
“Nonsense. You’re just saying that because no one ever has.”

FINWorks – Who we are

A challenge to all FINWorks employees to write some comments …

I have again given this a lot of thought over the last couple of weeks. What is our promise and do we live it?
It is a good idea to revisit your strategy and make sure you are still on track or to adjust it if needed. How much does one involve every employee in this process? Let me know what you think.

Doing the presentation in prezi was interesting. I believe that it has great potential and I’ve gotta learn more on using this tool. The concept of using size and zooming to create context is brilliant.

The presentation itself went OK to well. Not brilliant. There was a lot of conversation and debate with great insight from the audience. I should have politely cut off some conversations in order to proceed and give other people a chance. I’ll learn. One can see that people are really getting some things to work.

I’m not sure if a part of message was correct. I had this idea that I focus a lot on self organising teams early on in the process of adopting agile. But this is not quite true in retrospect because this is a very difficult thing to do and is really not the first thing to implement, as respectfully pointed out by the audience.

I remember on a previous team that I was appointed as the CTO and that I *could* enforce certain things although in my mind I was trying to sell the concepts. At some point, someone must make a call. I’ve made it, and it worked. Then, let go and encourage self organisation.

I can’t for the life of me understand how instant search on each keystroke will help with our already overburdened bandwidth et al.

The dropdown suggestions are really helpful, but instant search? I don’t know…

What do you think?

• Self-Awareness
  Learning Styles -Abstract, Concrete, Random, Sequential (Four Stages of Competence, US Gordon Training International organization )
• 5 Thinking Styles –Synthesist, Idealist, Pragmatic Thinker, Analyst Thinker, Realist Thinker (Richard Bramson, Coping with Difficult Bosses).
• SatirCategories -Blamer, Placater, Computer, Distractor, and Leveller(Virginia Satir)
• 7 NLP Meta-programs –Towards or Away, External or Internal, Sorting By Self or Sorting by Others, Matcher or Mismatcher, Convincer Strategy, Possibility vs. Necessity, Independent, Cooperative and Proximity Working Styles. (Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power).
• 6 Styles Under Stress –Masking, Avoiding, Withdrawing, Controlling, Labeling, Attacking (Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High)
• Meta-programs and Intrinsic Values in NLP -Towards and Away From, Options and Procedures, In-Time and Thru-Time, Internal Frame of Reference and External Frame of Reference, Self and Others, Detail and Global, Feeling and Thinking, Sameness and Difference. (David Moldenand Pat Hutchinson, Brilliant NLP: What the Most Successful People Know, Say & Do)
• The Lens of Human Understanding –Task Focus, People Focus, Aggressive, and Passive. (Dr. Rick Brinkman and Dr. Rick Kirschner, Dealing with People You Can’t Stand)
• JohariWindow –Open Self, Blind Self, Hidden Self, Unknown Self (Joseph Luftand Harry Ingham )
• 10 Types of Difficult People –Tank, Sniper, Know-It-All, Think-They-Know-It-All, Grenade Person, Yes Person, Maybe Person, Nothing Person, No Person, Whiners. (Dr. Rick Brinkman and Dr. Rick Kirschner, Dealing with People You Can’t Stand)
• The 16 Myers-Briggs Type Indicators -(MyersBriggs.org)

I’ve also found that it helps with

• general wellbeing when you stand up, re-focus your eyes frequently, stretch a bit
• tiredness because I feel I have more energy after a day’s work when I used this

The first little thing that helps is workrave. We’ve configured it to pop up every 25 minutes and persistently interrupt us. The temptation is there to ignore it (push it aside / “skip” the pomodoro), but what works best is to just jump up at that moment and take the 5 minute break. Don’t delay the break. You’ve done 25 minutes of focused work now; just do it.

Now in a team where we are programming in pairs, we find too many disruptions troublesome. Apart from people regularly jumping up (and breaking my pomodoro just because it’s their turn for a break), customers and other people freely interrupt because nobody knows when there is a suitable time to do so. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should be interrupted if the need is there, but if it can wait for a few minutes (to coincide with a break, perhaps), that will be great.

My first attempt is to put up a really grumpy and unfriendly face to discourage anyone from interrupting me That doesn’t work, for many reasons. Do you need details here?

What about a traffic light connected to each computer? We sync the workrave app with it (or put a timer on it). Red = don’t interrupt me (us for a pair). Green = I’m in a break. Or something like that.

We are trying the idea of syncing pomodoros. This means that all pairs start one at the same time. It implies that we all jump up at the same time.

The rules currently are

1. swap drivers consciously on pomodoros
2. swap pairs after 3 pomodoros
3. take a longer break after 6

So far, I’m ecstatic (really) about the outcome. Time truly flies. We really get stuff done. Pairs check each other and enforces the break, when it pops up. Lively discussion ensue in the break time. Swapping pairs frequently just makes work more exiting. People can enter and exit the process in mid flight. Wow.

Challenge is to keep it up, to pull in the odd-ball in the team and to get it implemented in an environment (big company, open plan, …) that doesn’t really support the thinking.