Becoming Agile (take the step)

I talk to lots of teams that want to become more Agile in their processes. The other day I realized that I’ve actually internalized the scrum master role (at least I think I have). I noticed that every day, when I’m talking to teams I work with, I’m always trying to dig into what they are doing and understand what problems need to be removed from their path - and then removing the obstacles.

Often the problem is something like what happened to me the other when I was trying to send a package to Denmark. I went to the mailroom and dropped off the box, and filled out the export form. About 3 days later the mailroom guy calls me and says:

“Your package hasn’t gone out yet. I’m waiting for the guys in the other building to make a decision about how we ship, and I can’t do anything until they tell me”. Sigh.

So, out of habit, I just ask “who is it ?”

I lookup the person’s phone number, make a call and POW – roadblock removed within about 30 minutes. Turns out they in turn were waiting from someone in California (“oh, you know, they never called me back”).

I mean it really does work – you just need to take the extra step of making that phone call and asking the question “why is this being held up?” and from what I’ve found is that 9 out of 10 times the roadblock goes away!

I’ve noticed myself doing this more and more lately – I just don’t accept the answer “I’m waiting on (x)”. I guess talking about Agile (and living it for so long) – I’ve really internalized it.

Try it: It’s amazing how fast things can really get done – just take that extra step!

Discovering Agility

I’m flying back from a pretty successful trip to Copenhagen. I was here as part of something IBM calls an “Innovation Discovery Workshop”. We met with one of IBM Denmark’s largest customers. It was my first time doing one of these, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Lots of high level, smart people talking about how the bank could change or adapt its business in an agile or nimble fashion based on customer needs – interesting but scary. The topic of the session was Business Agility - I was asked to attend so I could bring my perspectives on Agile Software Development into the discussion.

The two day session was held at a Spa/Hotel just outside of Copenhagen in a town called Skodsborg. My first challenge when I landed on Wednesday morning was finding a train from the airport to the small town about 40 minutes away. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with myself, having found the train and very easily wandering around the town to find my way to the Kurhotel and Spa.

Anyway, there were about 15 people from Nordea there and maybe 10 IBM’ers all from a variety of disciplines – and if you know me, I know NOTHING about banking and money so I was feeling a little out of my element!!! Anyway the idea behind the two days was to explore areas within the bank’s process and business model where they could be more innovation and agile in an attempt to respond to changes in the business climates. The first day wasn’t too bad – lots of good conversation and getting to know each other – the wonderful three course meal at the end of the day (complete with three courses of wine) helped to loosen everyone up.

I got to speak in the morning of the second day. I was scheduled to talk about Agile Software development and specifically I was going to focus on Scrum as an Agile technique. Unfortunately (for me) I got to follow one of our Distinguished Engineer’s and VP of Innovation in the CIO’s office: Francoise Legoues. She did an outstanding job – simply “wowing” the room and I think really setting the stage for just how innovative IBM can be. Lucky for me (not): A very tough act to follow.

So, armed with my lucky pink shirt I jumped in feet first and gave it my all! I think it went well – and it typical “Matt Style” (very animated and excited) I think I convinced them I know a little about the topic. There were lots of questions and comments afterwards – so I always take that as a good sign! I focused not so much on how to do Agile for software development, but rather how to “think” with an Agile and iterative (small step) mindset. They’re doing Agile development already. In fact Nordea is at the beginning of their Agile journey and like most teams just starting out, they have lots of questions (and lots of confusion) – They’re going to do fine though – they are very committed and very passionate about what they’re doing! It’s really exciting to see!

Did we help them ? I don’t know. They seemed to really get a lot out of it and watching Nordea talk amongst themselves about how to proceed (using ideas we forged together) I think I would say we did a good job!

I didn’t get to much sightseeing. The day ended around 4:00pm on Friday and a quick look at geocaching.com showed that there was a quick geocache about 0.2 miles from my hotel. After a brisk walk I quickly found the “cave” where the cache was hidden. It was really pretty cool. Around the back of that big opening was a little opening with stairs that led to the top (where the cache was hidden). Of course I left a Samstone there in memory of Sam Cohn (the son of a fellow IBM’er John Cohn) who was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of 14.

I did make it into Downtown Copenhagen for Dinner with two of the IBM workshop attendees: Adam Cutler and John Vergo – John works about 200 yards from me in Hawthorne, NY but we had to travel about 4,000 miles to meet – go figure! Other than the rain, it was a good night. It felt like Copenhagen should feel: wet and cold – in a good (European) way!

So, back home and back to the grind. Business travel for this year is done (I’m pretty sure).

Hey buddy, got a pen ?

Wednesday night was pretty exciting – I did my first (and hopefully not last) book signing for “A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum”. My signing was scheduled for 3pm but around 1pm I starting getting pretty nervous. I had been checking out the bookstore the whole week to see how the book was doing and it wasn’t pretty. There was a pretty large stack of books at the start of the conference (Sunday) and now here it was Wednesday afternoon and the stack looked about the same height (ie, nobody was buying it). So, naturally my fear was: if nobody is buying the book here at the conference, nobody is going to show up for a signing (duh!)

But, when I got to the bookstore, the people at IBM Press made me feel very welcome. We chatted about the content of what was in the book and even kicked around ideas for new books (which got me excited). Then before we started, I did a video interview for the IBM Press YouTube Channel - which was pretty cool. So at this point I was feeling pretty comfortable and when I looked at the front of the table I was SHOCKED to see a line forming to talk to me!!! Who would have thought that! How cool!

I met a team that was just starting to implement agile and had all kinds of questions about where to start and what some of their problems might be (that was my first signing) – we talked for quite a while about different approaches and techniques. Another guy was talking about his implementation at Northwestern University – He was worried about issues with his team being distributed, but it wasn’t overly complex since they were separated by only about 30 miles – BUT he was struggling with the cultural problems we talk about in the book since his team members come from China, India, Singapore, etc (interesting…). Another guy was doing his doctoral dissertation on Agile (I had a softspot for him ;-) We talked about all kinds of ways he could gather data and approach his problem. Lots of others…don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t running out of ink by any stretch of the imagination….but I made the most of the time I had with the people that did show !

Before I knew it my time was up and I forgot that I was nervous ! What a great experience!!! Can’t wait to do it again! By the way, somehow that stack of books was smaller by the very end of the conference – so they were selling (at least a little bit)

Streaking in the sky

On November 17^th and 18^th the Leonids Meteor Shower will grace our skies. The Leonids happens to be one of the better meteor showers to observe since they tend to produce an average of 40 meteors per hour when they hit their peak. The shower itself has a cyclic “peak year” every 33 years where hundreds of meteors can be seen each hour with the last of these cycles having occurred in 2001.

So what is a meteorite and where do they come from?

A meteor is the streak of bright light that can be seen from Earth when a meteorite enters our atmosphere. The actual object entering the atmosphere is called a meteorite, and can sometimes be a piece of an asteroid. The term meteor refers only to the image created by this entry into our atmosphere, often referred to as a falling star.

The bright light of a meteor is a result of heat produced by the meteorite entering out atmosphere. Rather than friction, this heat is produced by something called “ram pressure” - which is a pressure that is exerted on a something moving through a fluid medium which causes a strong drag force to be exerted on the body. This pressure heats the meteorite and the air around it to such a degree that the image of the meteor can be seen from earth.

In the course of the Earth’s orbit, our planet meets (or passes through) a number of these streams and clusters of tiny meteoroids at certain points in its orbit. These streams and clusters and are believed to be fragments of comets that past through our Solar System over the years. As the Earth passes through this debris, millions of tiny particles enter our atmosphere and the sky will seem to be filled with a shower of sparks and streaks.

A meteor shower's radiant is the point in the sky from which all the meteors appear to originate. The Leonid radiant is within the so-called "Sickle" of Leo; a backwards question-mark pattern of stars that outlines the head and mane of the constellation Leo, the Lion. Hence theses meteors are known as "Leonids."

The Leonids are known to be made up of cosmic litter from a small, dusty comet discovered by two astronomers in the late 19th century and was aptly named Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Leonid meteors are thought to be the dusty legacy of Comet Tempel-Tuttle because the dust is moving around the sun in virtually the same orbit as the comet. As the Earth encounters the debris left behind by the comet's previous passes through our orbit, these tiny fragments of the comet – typically no bigger than a grain of sand -impact our atmosphere at speeds of up to 45 miles per second causing them to blaze briefly but brightly in the night sky.

(adapted from my Column from the Westchester Amateur Astronomer November newsletter)

Viva Las Vegas

I’m out in Las Vegas (for the next 7 days or so) at the IBM Information on Demand (IOD) forum held here at the Mandalay Bay hotel. I’m actually here to help promote our book “A Practical Guide to Distributed Scrum” – but, in order to get out here, I had to volunteer to help set up the show (laptops, printers, displays, network, etc) - FYI - my session is 3767 (Meet the author)

Being at a trade show brings back some good memories – I used to do a lot of this work back when we’re building computer networks and developing the IBM Internet Service Providing (ISP) network - anyone remember ibm.net ? – back then we had to make our own Ethernet cables and then "man" the booth for 8-10 hours a day ! (I think in day we made a few hundred six foot cables – ugh!)

What’s really fun about doing this kind of work is watching how everybody pulls together to get the job done. For example, we’ll drag out 100 laptops to deploy to a room – and between the 4 or 5 of us, everybody just jumps in – nobody asks ‘what should I do?” – people just jump right in: somebody is plugging in power, others are connecting the security cables – if someone finishes their job before someone else completes theirs, they don’t ask, they just start helping you out. It’s a great example of people working as a team (in reality we want to get the job done ASAP and move on) – but the teamwork is really phenomenal! Interesting that I'm here to talk to people about Scrum and I ended up participating in a great team effort!

Anyway, its been a long (and tiring day) – time for a martini !

Serendipity

ser·en·dip·i·ty 

1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.
2. good fortune; luck

I just finished giving (yet another) talk. This is one of my favorite talks to give, it’s entitled “How to create Effective Team (without having to herd cats)”. I’ve given it a number of times, inside and outside IBM and to audiences around the world (that’s sounds more impressive that it probably is, but I was invited by several teams in places outside of the US to deliver it). Anyway…..I got to thinking: “How did I come up with this idea ?”

Well, one night after a Library Board meeting, I was talking to our library director about teams and how they can work better. Her eyes lit up and she asked me if I’d speak to the NY Library Association on the topic. So I created the presentation. It went over really well, so I offered to do it at IBM. They loved it, and I gave it twice (once in the US and Once to the Asia Pacific teams). Someone in India heard and asked me to do it (three different times) to teams in India. Just today, I did it again - this time to an audience of about 300 (again worldwide). Serendipity. I just so happened to be talking to Pat one night, and next thing I know, I have a lecture that is getting a lot of mileage ! I love it (wish I could say I planned it)

I think about this a lot. What if I didn’t go to school at Pace University in NY. I wouldn’t have gotten a part-time job at IBM, I wouldn’t have met my wife, I wouldn’t be teaching astronomy, wouldn’t have the dogs, wouldn’t live in this house, who knows about kids….etc etc. I wonder where I’d be and what I’d be doing. Interesting how one decision or one path in life can have such a ripple effect.

I wonder where I would be if had I gone to RIT or Georgia Tech ??

Mentoring

I just got out of a meeting with one of my High School science student protégées. I wasn’t really looking forward to the meeting – I had WAY too much to do today – too many meetings, too many things that were due, and to top it off, I was going to lose time in travel. When I got there and we started talking, I started to get rejuvenated….Tyler is working on Astronomical Spectroscopy and is trying to determine what the limiting magnitude is for an average amateur astronomer in the collection of useful spectra. When I heard about the progress he was making I was really impressed and my energy level start to really soar!! I was getting excited at the prospect of him making real progress not so much on his research, but on his learning how to use all of the equipment and software.

Now, I do a lot of mentoring (inside of work and outside) – and as I was driving to my meeting today I was trying to figure out “why I do it?". It can be time consuming. It can be frustrating. At times it can be boring. And it’s usually at an inconvenient time. So why do it ?

But when I have days like this, it always seems to be worth while. I do it because Tyler looks and acts so confident when he’s at a science fair. Or because Vicky emails me an excited email that she “got the managerial job”. Or the excitement when Yaser makes it through the evaluation process and made it to the “next level” in his career. Don’t get me wrong, some of my advice can backfire – Just ask Ed about getting yelled at by someone when I gave him what I thought was a good idea.

So, for all the "good" advice I give (and I’m sure that’s a debatable point) – I think I do it for the excitement I get when they “move ahead” in their careers and the fact that I know they’re excited. I guess I also get a “rush” out of knowing that I’m helping – and that the trust they placed in me paid off. A quick Google search turned up this, pretty accurate:

Winston Churchill said, "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give” - So thanks guys….as always, you made my day !