2008: A Retrospective

Things I’m most grateful for:

1. Creating new games with Vera and Portia. Lesson Re-Learnt: The best results come from collaboration.
2. Creating and playing games with wonderful people and getting paid for it. Lesson Learnt: Turning what you love into your job won’t make it a chore if you genuinely love what you do.
3. Meeting heroes like Eli Goldratt, Neil Armstrong, Daniel Dennett and Gerald Weinberg. Lesson Learnt: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
4. Travelling, meeting people and working with different teams in different settings. Lesson Learnt: Every team, every situation is different, yet we can all learn from each other.
5. Applying the Agile values in work and life with the help of friends and peer-coaches. Lesson Learnt: It’s often hard to “walk the walk”; we need all the help we can get; that’s how we add value.
6. The reaction of people who took part in XP Days or one of our sessions. Lesson Learnt: The best learning happens when we’re having fun. A big thank you to everyone I worked with.

2009: My Wishes

• I wish to co-create more games.
• I wish to co-create an Agile Fairytale and a Lean Fairytale.
• I wish to co-create a fun Agile Analysis session.
• I wish to apply more Lean and Theory of Constraints to expand agility beyond IT.
• I wish to keep writing, as it makes me think.
• I wish to keep on learning more every year and apply what I know to help great teams.
• I wish to keep on working with great teams.
• I wish you a Happy 2009 - may it bring you all that you deserve!

2008: A 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 triple the amount I learnt in 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!

Begin as you intend to go on

As an Agile Coach, I always start with a Personal Agility Rating exercise whenever I work with a new Agile team. By ‘new Agile team’, I mean a team with whom I’m working for the first time, regardless of their Agile experience. I do this for two reasons: 1) to set precedence for the kind of Agile we’ll be adopting going forward; 2) to create a common understanding of what being agile really means.

The Personal Agility Rating Exercise (Duration: 10 - 15 minutes)

1. Pass around a deck 4″ x 5″ index cards and a pot of coloured felt tips and ask everyone to take one of each.
2. Ask them to write their full name in the top righthand corner on one side of the card.
3. Ask them to write ‘Agile Values’ as a heading on the card.
4. Tell them that there are 5 Agile Values, also known as the XP Values by Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres.
5. Name Communication as the first Agile Value and ask the crowd what it means to them. Write down the value on a flip chart so everyone can see.
6. Summarise the definition of the value in concrete terms and, where possible, reiterate using the descriptions provided by the team.
7. Ask each person to rate themselves for the given value between 0 - 5, where 5 is ‘I’m the world’s best [communicator]!’ and 0 is ‘Needs a lot more work!’.
8. Tell them that the Agile Ratings will remain confidential between each individual and you (the coach) and will be used as a topic for conversation during 1-2-1 Agile Coaching.
9. Repeat steps 5 - 8 for each of the other 4 remaining values (Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect).
10. Collect the cards immediately after the exercise and continue with the rest of your team building/coaching activities.

The Kit - What you need

• 4″ x 5″ index cards (you can use lined or plain - I prefer lined for writing)
• Coloured felt tips (these help to create a less formal atmosphere for the exercise)

Tips

• Wait for between 10 - 15 seconds for a response before volunteering your definition of each value to encourage team participation.
• This exercise is best done following an ice breaker exercise (especially if the group is meeting for the first time) to put everyone at ease.
• I like to tell a short story about each value to make it more memorable.
• I like to add a small drawing next to each value after it’s been discussed to make its meaning more memorable.
• Ratings should be given as whole numbers only. For instance, if someone is tempted to give themselves 3.5 for Simplicity, I recommend they round down to the nearest whole number because there’s always room for improvement. I then reiterate, however, that as it’s their rating for themselves, it’s ultimately their decision what number they write down.
• The Agile Rating exercise is a great way of entering into a conversation about what being agile really means.

The Personal Agility Rating Exercise for Individuals

I use the the same exercise during my first 1-2-1 Agile Coaching sessions with newcomers to the team.

What do I do next as coach?

Immediate Followup

• Email a picture of each Agile Rating card to the individual for their reference and include several links on recommended Agile resources.
• Stick up the Agile Values poster in a prominent place in the team space to serve as a reminder of the activity and the importance of adhering to the values if we are to become an Agile team.
• Take the poster along with you to subsequent or troublesome meetings as a portable information radiator of what Agile means. In my experience, you don’t have to talk about the poster at all, just having it present and visible is usually enough to encourage Agile behaviour.

Mid-term Followup

• Discuss the Agile Ratings with each team member as part of their first 1-2-1 Agile coaching session.

Long-term Followup

• Choose to exercise the option of asking the team member to do a re-assessment of their Agile Ratings (as required) halfway through the Agile Enablement during a 1-2-1 Agile coaching session.
• Review the Agile Ratings with each team member as part of their last 1-2-1 coaching session with you.

Lessons Learnt about the Agile Values

You can never review the Agile Values too often - if you don’t know what they are, how do you know you’re being agile? Does everyone in your team know the Agile Values? And what about your coach?

Lean presentation in Paris

On the 21st of January 2009 I’ll be in Paris to present an evening seminar on how to apply the Toyota Way management principles to Agile software development. The seminar is organised by Carl Azoury and Olivier Huber of Zenika.

To me, Agile is the application of Lean principles to software development. So, the presentation contains a lot of parallels between the two. A lot will be very familiar if you already know and practice Agile.

So, what’s left to learn? Some of the Toyota Way management principles aren’t in Agile methods. These principles are useful when we go beyond software development. There comes a moment in any successful Agile enablement when the development team is no longer the bottleneck. Suddenly, we’re faced with a completely different set of issues. Now that Agile gains more and more acceptance, we need to be able to deal with these new challenges or accept that most Agile transformations will either die or bring limited extra business value.

The more I read and learn about Toyota, the more I realise how much I don’t know and how many preconceived ideas I have to abandon. I need to keep learning. The Toyota Product Development System, for example, contains many counter-intuitive ideas like set-based design. Real Options thinking can help us understand why some of these techniques work. We’ve only started to scratch the surface of Lean ideas.

Toyota losing money? Impossible!

In the news, even Toyota is affected by the economic climate. They might even have to post the first loss since the early years. Isn’t Toyota invincible and perfect? Of course not. It will be a real show of faith in the Toyota Way if Toyota continue to keep on their workers, keep training them and keep improving to be ready when sales take off again.

Secretly, top Toyota management must be happy that this crisis happens now. One of their main concerns is complacency. No one should ever think that the work is “done”, now that Toyota is the biggest manufacturer. Hansei and Kaizen should be applied relentlessly, it’s always possible to do better. Nothing better than tough economic times to bring back the sense of urgency.

See you in Paris

The seminar is free, but you must register here. Don’t wait too long because places are limited.

See you there!

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!

The first and most important thing I share with any team I work with are the Agile Values, also known the XP Values from Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres.

The Five Agile Values

1. Communication is a two way thing. It’s about talking and listening.

2. Simplicity is about simple solutions that do what’s required, no more, no less. Simplicity is synonymous with elegance.

3. Feedback has three axes: Giving feedback, receiving feedback and taking action as a result of the feedback.

4. Courage is about taking calculated risks. It’s about facing and voicing the brutal facts. It’s also about creating an environment where people can be courageous.

5. Respect is an appreciation that everyone can add value. It’s also about valuing diversity.

Agile Values++

During our peer coaching, Pascal and I identified two more vital values to add to the set:

6. Trust is about giving people a chance to do the right thing and to do things right.

7. Transparency means sharing information as much as possible to help create more Real Options for all parties involved.

What the Agile Values mean in practice

Newcomers to Agile often ask me: ‘How do you know if someone is really agile?’ To which I reply, ‘They follow the Agile Values even at times of great stress.’ Those who compromise on the Values can never be truly agile, especially if they get stuck in Denial.

In my experience, Respect is the toughest and most important value because it forms the foundation for the rest. You have to respect others and yourself to really make the other values count.

The Telltale Heart

I regularly meet Agilistas who appear to respect others and themselves, yet they are incapable of accepting feedback and taking action. According to Marshall Goldsmith, the only correct response to any feedback is: ‘Thank You’. What do you say when someone gives you feedback?

Half way through my Christmas shopping mission, I meet up for coffee with my friend TJ, even though he drinks neither tea nor coffee. I tell him about an article I’d just been reading about people’s fitness and gyms.

‘According to the highly experienced instructor in the article, most people put in around 7/10 amount of effort when they workout,’ I say, pleased to have committed to memory what I thought was a useful factoid.

There’s a split-second pause as the thinking cogs click into motion and then TJ says, ‘Most people work out at 3. Out of 15.’

Baffled, I’m silent for some time. Of course there’s no real way of knowing whether or not his statement is factually correct, but it resonates with me. It also casts a dark shadow over the past couple of weeks whenever I’d managed to shave a couple of seconds off my 5k PB.

‘You can run faster than that,’ TJ says.

‘How do you know?’ I huff, indignant of so bold a challenge.

‘Because I’ve seen you do it. Once.’

And I had. I’d just forgotten.

As an Agile Coach, the greatest challenge for me on any Agile Enablement gig is The Wall. And I don’t mean the Project Wall (aka Kanban Board), the one with the iteration backlog on display for all to see, where stories and tasks take their turn journeying across the columns of TODO and In Progress before finally reaching DONE.

The Wall I speak of is a metaphorical one. Everyone has one. One person’s Wall may well be different from someone else’s. I can only share with you what mine looks and feels like. The most important thing is to be able to recognise yours when you come up against it. Recognising the Wall is one small, yet significant step towards winning the struggle against yourself.

I know I’ve reached the Wall when:

• I’ve stopped listening.
• I refuse to ask for feedback.
• I refuse to ask for help.
• I’ve stopped learning.
• I think I’m right and everyone else is wrong.

The Wall at its most extreme means:

• I’ve run out of answers.
• I feel helpless.
• I feel like running away and leaving it all behind.
• I’ve lost hope.
• I question everything I represent: from my areas of expertise and skills to my years of experience.

In summary, The Wall is when self doubt gnaws at your bones trying to get to the marrow. It’s when you refuse to face the brutal facts about yourself and start making up stories in the hope of magicking away The Wall through make-believe.

Agile and The Wall

Agile Enablement is tough because Agile demands continuous improvement. Continuous Improvement means being on the constant lookout for problems and facing the brutal truths when we find them so that we can deal with them through process and/or people improvement. It’s only natural that Continuous Improvement at an organisational level results in growing pains on a grand scale.

Rules about The Wall

1. You have to confront The Wall.
2. You have to develop an understanding of how The Wall has come to be in order to identify ways of getting over it.
3. You have to climb over The Wall. You cannot just skirt or workaround it.

Dealing with The Wall as an Individual

Here’s what I do when I find myself or a team member facing The Wall:

1. Take a break.
2. Find a quiet place to sit and think.
3. Find out how others are feeling about the situation in a 1-2-1.
4. Ask for feedback.
5. Perform a version of a temperature reading.
6. Put checks in place and assess progress.
7. Rinse and repeat.

Dealing with The Wall as a Team

1. Take a break.
2. Hold an impromptu team retrospective.
3. Mine for key issues.
4. Brainstorm possible causes for key issues.
5. Brainstorm possible solutions for key issues.
6. Commit to trying out 1 - 3 possible solutions as a team.
7. Put checks in place and assess progress.
8. Rinse and repeat.

Beware of Wallflowers

Be on the look out for perpetual laggards who choose to hang around The Wall. No one forces them to stay there, as they kick stones at the foot of the Wall, like aged teenagers smoking their cigarettes by the bike shed trying to look cool long after the bike shed is gone. Offer help by way of a 1-2-1 conversation to identify options that may help them go over The Wall.

The Secret to Scaling The Wall

• Always apply the Agile Values: Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage and Respect
• Apply two additional Agile Values: Trust and Transparency
• Practice Real Options thinking
• Take responsibility for yourself
• Find meaning in your work
• Find ways you can add value
• Strive to improve continuously
• Strive to enjoy what you do - the amount of fun you have is in direct correlation with the chances of you being able to scale The Wall

There’s one more thing about The Wall you should know: there will be many incarnations of The Wall you’ll have to face. The trick is to focus of scaling the one that’s blocking your way now. Another one will inevitably spring up elsewhere on your journey and that’s good news because we need The Wall to keep our brains agile and our bodies nimble. The Wall also keeps us honest about how agile we really are.

What Went Well

Team Compensation by Vera Peeters and Yves Hanoulle: I attended the rehearsal session by Vera and was ‘WOWed’ by the excellent use of Playmobil to illustrate the impact of a maladjusted reward system on team behaviour. This session is a definite MUST-SEE workshop if you get the chance!

Coaching Self Organisating Teams by Joseph Pelrine: Joseph compares team performance with making chicken soup. There are 5 possible states to the Heat Model: Burning (results in team burnout and death marching), Cooking (ideal temperature for continuous improvement), Stagnating (discipline is lost and bad behaviour begins to fester), Congealing (team gets too comfortable to achieve and bad habits become the norm) and Solidifying (control takes over and change is no longer possible).

The Real Options Space Game by Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and me: Pascal and I tried out version 2 of the Space Game board and materials with 18 intrepid adventurers. Thanks to the feedback from Vera during our rehearsal session, Pascal and I improved our pair presenting on the day. Find out how one participant, Al Priest, has been applying Real Options.

Open Spaces: Although I was unable to attend any, the feedback from other participants were positive on the whole. It’s always good to see active participation and exchange of ideas among practitioners! I look forward to participating in Open Spaces next year.

The Yellow Brick Road Revisited (aka The Road to Agile Adoption through Peer Coaching) by Duncan Pierce and me: This was a session Duncan and I presented last year at XP Day London. The intention was to create a ongoing network for Agile practitioners to help one another through adopting Agile. Thanks to Douglas Squirrel and Simon Woolf for their Lightning Talk on their peer coaching experience as a followup to the session!

Complaints with Recommendations

• One of my main reasons for attending XP Day London this year was to hear David Stoughton give a talk on User Stories, Agile Analysis and Business Value. I know that many others wanted to attend his session too but missed out, so it would be great to schedule such sessions as a keynote for next year.
• There were 4 scheduled sessions on the afternoon of Day 2 of the conference when there was only one scheduled session in the morning. It may be an idea to spread out the scheduled sessions more, especially when speakers were available to do so. This would give people Real Options.
• In my experience, catering is one of the most important things to get right at any conference. Tasty meals and snacks would have made the conference more enjoyable.

‘Twas the night before Geekmas…

‘Happy Geekmas Eve!’ said Portia and Pascal.

‘What’s Geekmas Eve?’ I hear you gasp with anticipation.

Geekmas Eve marks the official day before the launch of the latest version of the Real Options Space Game. It’s an auspicious day when species gather from around the galaxy to marvel at the folly of humankind.

‘Can we trust those humanoids to preserve galactic peace?’, quibble the alien Council members in unison.

‘Fools!’ snigger the evil Montague clan from Beta-564, poised to swallow all that is of earthly beauty in one sloppy gulp.

Never fear, Real Options is here!

I hope you will join Pascal and me this Friday to play the best ever Real Options Space Game* this side of the galaxy at XPDay London. Be there, or risk becoming human snacks.

* No aliens were harmed in the making of the game.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

(Over coffee during an Agile training course)

Student: You weren’t what we were expecting.
P.: What do you mean?
Student: We were expecting a male trainer.
P.: I see.
Student: Actually we were expecting a big man with a beard.
P.: You’re right. I’m no Santa Claus.

What you see isn’t always what you get

A recent conversation with a student reminded me of the importance of keeping an open mind. Most important of all, according to Marshall Goldsmith, we would do well to question the success we attribute to ourselves.

What got you here won’t get you there

In his book on professional development, What What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Marshall asserts that most of us are successful not because of personal merit. Instead, Marshall says that most of us are successful in spite of who we are and the things we do.

Marshall identifies the top 20 offences many successful people are guilty of:

1. Winning too much
2. Adding too much value
3. Passing judgment
4. Making destructive comments
5. Starting with ‘No’, ‘But’, ‘However’
6. Telling the world how smart we are
7. Speaking when angry
8. Negativity, or ‘Let me explain why that won’t work’
9. Withholding information
10. Failing to give proper recognition
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve
12. Making excuses
13. Clinging to the past
14. Play favourites
15. Refusing to express regret
16. Not listening
17. Failing to express gratitude
18. Punishing the messenger
19. Passing the buck
20. An excessive need to be ‘me’

Do any of these sound familiar? I’m guilty of at least three. What struck me most about the list was that I recognised many of the attributes in the managers with whom I’d worked early on in my career. And yet they continued to be promoted.

In my experience, what Marshall identifies as limiting flaws continues to be rewarded by many organisations. Such organisations are usually highly hierarchical and rigid. Such places are usually mired in all kinds of waste: wasteful management, wasteful individuals, wasted potential. And all because an organisation rewards individual achievement over collaboration, trust and transparency.

Agile Adoption with Change to spare

Agile Adoption requires organisational change. Organisational change requires each of us to make a change for the better, however small, however seemingly insignificant at first glance. Organisational change takes time. And an incredible amount of effort. Personal effort. Some would call it an investment.

Real Options?

This Friday, Portia and I will present the “Real Options Space Game” at XP Days London. This strategy board game set in space allows players to experiment with Real Options concepts.

Real Options is a tool to optimize decisions: it helps us to consider and manage more possibilities and gives us more time to gather information, so that our decisions are better informed. The basic ideas are taken from financial options, but have been widened to be applicable to real-world management decisions.

There are several types of Real Options. Let’s see if the option metaphor is a useful one. How can we apply Real Options in the real world?

The option to delay a project

In this paper, Aswath Damodaran compares a Net Present Value (NPV) analysis with a Real Options analysis to decide which projects to fund when. Projects with a negative NPV now, might still become valuable later. That’s because the Real Options analysis takes into account the value of getting more information and therefore reducing risk and uncertainty.

We always have the Learning Option. We can always gather more information.

In the article, the delay is examined in a situation where the organisation has (or can buy) a way to get a hold on the market, like with a patent. We can create an option to delay a project even in a competitive market: if we have a shorter cycle time than our competitors we can afford to wait longer to start our projects. This gives us more time to gather market information. In a very volatile market, it can be more valuable to wait, to increase the odds of building the right product at the right time.

For example, if Toyota’s new product development time is 6 months shorter than a competitor, Toyota can afford to start development 6 months later. That’s 6 months in which to gather more information, six months in which they could see major swings in customer demand or in the market. That’s six months in which people can work on other projects.

So, if you decrease your cycle time you create options to

• Increase your cash flow
• Be first on the market
• Delay the project, take the go/no go decision later, when we have more information

By using Lean and Agile methods to decrease cycle time, we create real options. Starting later may be the right thing to do.

There are more fun real options, like the option to abandon a project. What could be the value of abandoning a project?

Change Happens

P.: I hear you’re an Agile Coach.
Agilista: You are correct.
P.: What do you do as a coach?
Agilista: I change people.
P.: In my experience, you can only change yourself.
Agilista: I change people. Like psychologists do.
P.: My mistake. I thought you said you were an Agile Coach.

With great power comes great responsibility

Agile Coaching is a people business. I’m an Agile Coach because I’m interested in people. Why? Because working with others helps me better understand myself and the world around me. Learning doesn’t just help me deliver business value. Learning helps me create things of worth. I’m an Agile Coach but that doesn’t make me a psychologist.

An effective Agile Coach inspires those around them to change for the better. They lead by example. They constantly strive to improve by seeking feedback and taking action arising from the feedback. They show that change happens by changing themselves.

An effective Agile Coach learns by making mistakes. They take calculated risks by trying out new or different ways of doing things. This means sometimes things might go wrong. Making mistakes is essential in the cycle of learning. You have to do something different to change the status quo. Doing the same thing you’ve always done and expecting a different result is like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

An effective Agile Coach is trustworthy. They act as the guide for a team on their journey towards becoming more agile. ‘Integrity is the opposite of manipulation,’ Pollyanna Pixton once said during a JAOO session on leadership. I take this to mean you can help people change by providing and exploring real options, but the choice remains theirs. Believing you have the power to change others sounds a lot like meddling to me. So long as people have the choice to change, you cannot ‘change people’.

Making a living out of learning

Human beings can’t help but learn. As Jim Collins (of From Good to Great fame) says, there’s no OFF switch to people learning. We’re learning all the time, whether we want to or not. Start by taking responsibility for yourself instead of trying to change others to suit you.

A training gig in Helsinki means an early start for Christmas celebrations this year. My Finnish guides help brighten up my brief, yet adventurous, 4-day visit with their cultural commentary.

‘There’s no specific Finnish word for “please”.’ It seems that it’s implied in the structure of what you say and how you say it. ‘That’s why Americans think we’re rude,’ exclaims one Finn.

‘The Finns advocate and live by the principle of Work-Life balance.’ Many of the people I meet seem to work at a sustainable pace. It’s remarkable how some folks respond to fewer daylight hours by making the most of their dark afternoons and evenings.

‘The Finns work hard.’ I’m told it’s a matter of pride that many people here work hard. No Finn wants to be regarded as a lay-about. If this is true, then it’s a good example of what Dubner and Levitt describe in Freakonomics as a social incentive that influences human behaviour (the other two being financial and moral incentives).

‘The Finns are straight talkers.’ They tell you what’s what, no messing about. It requires some serious listening - whether you want to hear it or not. In return, they really listen to what you have to say.

‘Helsinki’s a pleasant place to work.’ Most of the non-native Finns I meet tell a similar story of how they ended up in Helsinki by chance. ‘I came here as a student and have stayed on ever since!’ beam a number of Finns.

‘The Finns are a friendly bunch once they get to know you.’ I wonder if it’s because good company helps keep the winter blues at bay. That and Lapland being less than 100 kilometres away.

Casual Observations

The Finns seem to talk more about the weather than even the Brits. I feel right at home as folks spend their lunchtime commiserating one another on the rain and long for a winter with snow to brighten the long darkness.

Most people I meet from around the world wish they worked in a flat structure at work. One Finn insists his boss isn’t just the bloke who sits next to him, but also a good friend. ‘What happens when you make a mistake?’ I ask. ‘He tells me and we work it out,’ he nods, smiling.

The Gift of Giving

During my expedition in search of Christmas presents, I stumble across an unusual sight: the Free Hugs campaign at the main train station. ‘If I give you a hug, may I take your picture? It’s for my blog,’ I explain. Distracted by the phenomenon, I mistake their offer as a commodity instead of a gift.

Nonetheless, I give and get a hug. What a great idea.

‘We’re part of a global movement to increase happiness in the world,’ says one of the young women as a matter-of-fact.

‘Do you come across strangers you would rather not hug?’ I ask.

‘Yes!’ replies the shorter of the two gifthuggers.

‘But we hug them anyway!’ insists the taller one.

Now that’s dedication.

Real Options Space Game

Do you want to prevent galactic war? Do you have experience flying spaceships in dangerous corners of the universe? Not afraid of space pirates and angry aliens? Then sign up for the Real Options Space Game at XP Days London. The pay isn’t great, but the benefits more than make up for that.

The Real Options Space Game is a board game for 6-13 players that lets you play with Real Options concepts. Portia and I will be running two games in parallel (in parallel universes?), so that we can compare many different strategies, a sort of set-based design.

In the game, pairs play the crew of a spaceship who must transport a precious cargo from one end of the galaxy to another. On the way, the crew has to deal with risks such as attacks by space pirates, strikes by disgruntled transport workers, disputes between different alien races, technology breakdowns and more bizarre plot twists. And they have to do it with limited resources and time. Sound familiar?

What are Real Options?

Real Options is a decision-making tool that, like so many of these tools, looks deceptively simple. It’s just common sense, most people respond when we first explain the concepts. But we quickly see that these simple concepts aren’t applied. We can explain Real Options until we’re blue in the face without any effect. You have to experience how to apply the tool under (simulated) pressure to realize if and how Real Options are useful.

Real Options consists of two components:

• The concept of options. Each option has
  • A value
  • A buying and exercising cost
  • An expiry condition which determines when the option becomes useless

• A process to deal with options:
  • A way to determine the last moment when we have to take a decision and commit ourselves
  • Keeping as many options open as long as possible
  • Actively seeking out more information and more options in the time before we have to commit

Unlike with financial options, we often don’t have exact numbers for cost and value. Most of the time we don’t need the numbers, we only need to know which of two options has a higher value or lower cost.

And what does that have to do with XP and Agile?

You can apply Real Options in just about any situation where you’re faced with difficult decisions. Once you know the concepts, you see options everywhere.

Real Options underlie some of the tricky Agile and Lean practices. By working with short releases and user stories that are elaborated during a release, we push back the moment of difficult decisions, so that we have more time to gather information. By using good engineering practices (TDD, refactoring, continuous integration…) we lower the cost of changes and decisions, again pushing back the moment of decision. Meanwhile, we have more options open for the direction of the application. Set-based design is an economical way of exploring may design options

It all sounds very reasonable to me, but much of the resistance against Agile is about the ideal moment of decision. Most of us feel more comfortable when we’ve made a decision. Having lots of open options may seem like procrastination or even indecisiveness. We feel the need to make that decision NOW, especially when we’re under pressure. Keeping our heads cool and applying the Real Options tool can help us make better informed decisions.

Once we practice Real Options in real life, we start asking “when do we have to decide?” and we look for more options. Try it, practice it, so that you can take better decisions under pressure.

See you at XP Days London, 11-12 December 2008.

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Pictures by Pentadact (spaceship), Jason Pratt (sunrise) and Nasa/JPL (planet). Used with permission

My friend Thoughtful Jim is the silent type. Whenever I pose a philosophical question (such as ‘Can we be paid well for doing what we love?’), instead of accusing me of overthinking, TJ usually replies, ‘I can’t answer an important question just like that. Let me think about it.’ TJ’s a deep thinker. And when he has something to say, I always sit up and listen.

One day, I notice TJ looking a bit glum. Instinctively, I tell him about the importance of doing what makes his heart sing. For once, he’s ready with a retort, ‘What does it mean “make your heart sing”? I’m not like you - I’ve never experienced anything that makes my heart sing.’ For the longest moment I’m lost for words.

Without music, life would be a singular mistake

What makes my heart sing is striving to do my best, gaining a better understanding of the world and myself and, most important of all, doing W-O-R-K T-H-A-T M-A-T-T-E-R-S. (Thanks to Tom Peters for the reminder!) That’s just my definition, of course. Yours is likely to be something entirely different.

I feel I owe TJ a better answer than this, so I begin to carry the question around in my head.

The Story of Success

Then I came across the answer this Tuesday when I went to hear Malcolm Gladwell speak at the London Business Forum.

Malcolm says that for an individual to be successful, they must do ‘Meaningful Work’. He defines Meaningful Work as:

1. Autonomous - You determine what you do
2. Complex - It’s hard enough to exercise your mind
3. Effort and reward - The more work you put in, the greater the reward you reap.

Malcolm’s definition is like a chance meeting with an old friend because it’s what I used to do at school. And it’s by identifying those three attributes that Malcolm crystalises what I’ve always known, but never quite dared to acknowledge as a working adult because it sounds impossible to achieve.

The Riddle of Work

The currency of work is changing. Can we be paid well for doing what we love? Yes! How do I know? Because I do more of what I love every day and am rewarded both financially and experiencially.

How many people do you know have:

• 1 x suitcase stuffed with 225 balloons
• 10 x Agile game kits (The XP Game and The Business Value Game)
• 4 kilograms of chocolates
• And plays games to help adults learn in beautiful cities such as Helsinki?

Work can be fun. Sometimes it even becomes a party.

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

From dawn …

At the crack of dawn, organisers and friends hold a standup to kick off the day. Most of the material had already been brought in and prepared the night before, after the pre-conference dinner and drinks. Tasks are quickly written on sticky notes; the wall serves as our kanban board. All the tasks quickly move to Done as everyone chips in. Participants trickle in, grab some coffee to wake up and register. XP Days is rolling.

The day traditionally starts with the Official One Minute Presentations (OOMPs), shortened to 30 seconds because of the large number of sessions, where presenters pitch their session in weird, funny and unusual ways. This immediately sets the right tone for the conference: Agile is serious, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

… till dusk

Every day closes with the mirror of the OOMPs, the Official One Minute Participant Presentations. For each session in turn, session participants stand up and tell us what the session was about and what they learned, so that everybody at least gets some information about the sessions they missed. Judging by the smiling faces everybody had a great day taking part in interesting sessions.

At XP Days Benelux we don’t differentiate between speakers and participants, other than that speakers get in for free. XP Days Benelux is about sharing, communication and collaboration.

Gaming into the night

Each participant could choose a persona for their badge. Nicole and Johan had devised a social game with the session proposal personas: participants should seek out people with interesting personas to create a team. Teams had to present themselves at the closing and won prizes. The persona game was a great way to meet with new people and created a lot of buzz during the whole conference.

The fun and discussions continued well into the night at the bar (with free drinks thanks to our sponsors) and at dinner. Conversations continued well into the night at the bar. The more energetic and competitive participants played board games until 2:30 at the Games Night.

House rules

At the start of the conference we explain that XP Days Benelux has only one rule:

Participants participate

Most of the sessions are interactive, participative and invite discussion. For the organisers, there’s very little work to do after the sessions start. We try to manage with a light touch. We offer the participants the context in which they can create their conference. Two examples of participants taking responsibility were:

• Jamie and Joke stepping in to organise an Open Space session and an impromptu presentation about Agile Analysis to replace two cancelled sessions.
• A group of participants helping the friendly ladies from Koningshof plan the asymmetric coffee breaks on Friday afternoon.

Sessions

The Critical Chain session by Christophe and Olivier let us build cars with Lego to improve our planning prowess. Not surprisingly, the two teams that collaborated and shared knowledge did better than the other teams.

Seeking to Perceive more than to be Perceived by Emmanuel and Bernard let us experiment with three communication tools, “Investigate Protocol”, “Soft Focus” and “Emic Interviewing”. The aim of the session was to come up with ideas and a plan to improve next year’s conference. There were some good ideas in the session. If you want to help make them reality, contact us and volunteer for XP Days Benelux 2009.

Vera, Portia and I ran the Business Value Game with five teams. The participants were really absorbed by the game. The standup retrospectives allowed the players to reflect on the questions raised by the game. One of the takeaway points from the session was that we need to have a (probably difficult) conversation about the way our company, our team prioritises because that will reveal what we really value.

A whole room of Agilistas was rapt listening to Portia retell the Snow White fairy tale in the “Mirror Mirror… Why Me?” session. The participants speed-networked and reflected before working together to come up with a dwarve dream team to realise their fantasy project. The session ended on a high note with the “one minute investor pitches” where the projects and the teams were presented.

Including “Working with Resistance” in the program was a bit of a gamble. Would participants be interested in an Aikido session? We’re happy that Olivier Costa proposed this session, because a packed room participated in the exercises and stood in awe at the demonstrations by Olivier and his sensei Frank. After a whole day of working with our heads and hearts, this session got our body working. The lessons for introducing change are clear: work with the other’s energy, not against it.

Done

Another XP Days Benelux is over.

We’re collecting the feedback and ideas of participants and organizers to improve next year’s edition. If you want to make XP Days Benelux 2009 better, contact us to become part of the organising team.

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Photos by Xavier Quesada and Portia Tung

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

“Fun, Learning, Sharing, Smiles and Laughter”

These five words best describe my first and last impressions of XP Days Benelux 2008.

The conference opened with a warm welcome from the organisers Pascal Van Cauwenberghe, Vera Peeters, Nicole Belilos and me. Next up were Day 1 presenters who promoted their sessions as OOMPs reduced to 30 seconds (pronounced ‘oomps’ aka Official One Minute Presentations).

The conference hall shuddered with laughter as the mini-marketing exercise transformed previously mild and quiet presenters into creative and boisterous marketeers. A few members of the audience even shrieked with delight at the mention of fairytales and the search for happy endings.

Close of Play

Another unique feature was 30 second OOMPs from participants as part of the closing on each day.

Participants stood up to share their thoughts and lessons learnt as Pascal called out the title of each session of the day.

Behind the logistical scenes were the ever resourceful Rob Westgeest (another of the great conference organisers) and Olivier Costa, flanked by a rotating set of volunteers ready to help whenever help was needed. Now that’s what I call a self-organising team.

Fun and Games

One example of F-U-N in action was the Persona Game where each conference participant identified themselves with a particular conference participant stereotype. To win a prize, each participant had to form a team of different persona types to deliver a team OOMP.

Another example was the Games Night where more than 30 grownups played board and card games until the wee hours of the next morning (2:30 am to be precise).

Session Favourites

Critical Chain by Christophe Thibaut and Olivier Pizzato - Mecanno experience is hard to come by, but we can deliver value if we share our knowledge, expertise and tasks

Seeking to Perceive More Than to be Perceived by Emanuel Gaillot and Bernard Notarianni - Where we learnt about three more tools to add to our Better Communication Toolkit: “Investigate Protocol” (from Jim and Michele McCarthy), “Soft Focus” (by theatre director Tadashi Suzuki) and “Emic Interviewing” (from American anthropologist Marvin Harris)

The Business Value Game by Pascal, Vera and me - Learning how the game can be scaled up to 6 teams of 6 participants with 3 facilitators while preserving the quality of learning and gaming experience

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall… Why Me? - Amusing 33 grownups with the retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Tarantino style

Working with Resistance by Olivier Costa and his Sensei - Where we learnt about the importance of exercising the body with the mind by doing some basic Aikido exercises. Many participants left beaming and reinvigorated by the experience before heading to the bar

Cultural Remarks

• A Dutch road slows down traffic with a “verkeerseiland” or “slowing down / traffic island” instead of a speed hump (aka “sleeping policeman“)
• Dutch quiches are served in blocks and cut up into cubes of cheesy goodness instead of being round tarts or tartlets (as served in the UK and in France)

Final Thoughts

What immediately struck me about XP Days Benelux was the spirit of inclusion, instead of exclusivity as seen at so many of the other conferences I’ve been to in the past. XP Days Benelux is a unique gathering because it’s based on what you want to know instead of who you know.

One Nice-to-Have echoed by several people would be more sessions for more seasoned Agile practitioners. I would like to see how this would be implemented next year.

I regret missing the Werewolf Game this year so I’ll be sure to participate in next year’s Games Night!

Many thanks to the wonderful photos by Xavier Quesada. Cheers Xavier!

Still Life

P.: Richard’s a nice guy.
Z: He’s changed a lot since meeting a lady friend recently.
P.: (Pauses) Has he changed for the better?
Z: Definitely. Richard’s got potential.
P.: (Smiles)
Z: I like to think of him as a work-in-progress.

Life as Art

I’d never heard of someone being described as a ‘work-in-progress’ before. My friend Z. is an artistic, cultured kind of guy, so when he described Richard as a work-in-progress, he had meant it to be a compliment of sorts. The idea that Richard had the potential to be an artist’s masterpiece. Being a work-in-progress is part of that journey.

Zach’s use of the term ‘work-in-progress’ also reminded me of Lean. In Lean, you strive to first deliver value. You achieve this by minimising work-in-progress. That’s because too much work-in-progress blocks flow, delays value from being realised. Worst of all, it hides waste.

In Richard’s case, he’s the single piece of work-in-progress on his Assembly Line of Life. That fits nicely with Lean where you want to be working on one thing at a time.

From Journeyman to Master

But something’s still missing from the equation. Does being part of the status quo help us become a masterpiece? Does reliving the same year twenty times give us twenty years of experience? Sounds more like a death march to me.

Then it dawns upon me, the most magical ingredient of all.

Kaizen’s for life, not just on birthdays

In life, we are the artist as well as our own potential masterpiece. We become a work-in-progress from the day we’re born and remain one until we die. The Goal is to turn our life into our own masterpiece. To achieve that goal we need to continuously improve. Continuous Improvement forces us to learn. And to change. By changing for the better, we move closer towards our Goal. And so the virtuous circle takes shape to become the wheel that rolls us forward.

Make yours a masterpiece. Love something, change something, make something better.

Preparing for XP Days Benelux

Thursday, the XP Days Benelux start. The first sessions start at 10:00; the conference organisation is about done by then. Once the conference gets going, there’s not a lot of work for the organisers. From then on, the session presenters and participants have to do their bit. We’re not kidding when we say that “the focus of this conference is on practical knowledge, real-world experience, and active participation of everyone”.

Bigger and better than ever before

At least it’s bigger than before. The number of participants has grown steadily from 85 in the first year to more than 150 this year. We’ve always set a cap on the number of participants: 30 participants per track. That (plus or minus 10) is about the number of participants with whom you can have really interactive session.

Better?

We’ll know from the retrospective if we’ve improved on last year.

See you there

Or if you can’t be there, follow the conference via the FriendFeed XP Days Benelux room or read our presenter and attendees’ blogs.

More later.