Dan's Leaving Card
If you're using
avatars on
planning boards, here's a great idea for the team to say
kthxbai to someone who's leaving. It beats a boring leaving card signed by everyone in the office.
Labels: avatar
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Our new office in Holborn London
Energized Work is now based at 17 Macklin Street, Holborn, London, WC2B 5NQ.
Labels: energizedwork, energylab
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What makes an effective pairing session?
Jeff Home works with
Dan Nye through their company,
Coedit. They're 2 of the best Web developers I've worked with and they're an important part of what's become the Energized Crew. Jeff and Dan are working with us in a team at one of our larger clients.
Jeff sent me this write-up on their last retrospective, which focused on what makes an effective pairing session:
We broke into groups of 3 or 4 and made our posters to present back to the team. This mind-map poster (one of the teams had created it as their poster) was used as the base to include other team suggestions, leading to a team-accepted definition of what makes an effective pairing session.
All the teams shared a very close vision and all the presentations were very similar. Obviously there was a very clear understanding within the team of what makes an effective pairing session. This retrospective served to show our new starters what we expect of one another as well as remind us all of what is expected of us when we are pairing with one another.
Here's
another write-up of a similar retrospective run with a different team.
Labels: pair-programming, retrospective
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Gardening for Facilitators
If you're new to light-touch leadership you may find yourself focusing on the big events (
stand-ups,
retrospectives, planning games,
showcases,
beer). However it's the little-noticed
gardening work that happens over the course of an iteration that really helps a team work together and deliver effectively. Here's a few examples, some of which may be specific to our environment:
Pair-Programming:Given that your team holds
pair-programming as a norm, look around and see if people are actually pairing, if not, why not? Are the pairs that are settled working well? Perhaps someone has disengaged and 'gone dark'. Maybe they need a break or maybe they haven't swapped around in a while (short-term marriage syndrome). Is a pair being disrupted by one party repeatedly fiddling with their PDA or mobile, taking calls, disappearing frequently, or floating back to their machine to IM or email? Perhaps there's an inexperienced pair that have reached a impasse and could do with a fresh pair of eyes.
Builds:Is the build broken? Obvious I know, but you'd be surprised how often this is missed, even with lava lamps and flashing screens or audible alerts. If it is broken,
can you tell who's fixing it? If the build appears to be constantly failing, find out how many times it has failed so far today. Maybe the team could do with a
timeout to address it.
Cards:Are the cards,
boards and other
information radiators clean and up-to-date? You'll probably find that quite a lot of your time will be spent maintaining them. Are cards in play being
sliced as they're developed? Has the
customer been in the
bullpen for review at all today? Are QA involved and getting builds to test? Keep an eye out for typical scenarios that may need attention, for example a card that has been 'almost
done' for more than a day.
General Communication:Is the office like a library, or worse, a morgue? Remember that as a faciliator one of your key roles is to protect the team from external interruptions so watch the flow of people in and out of your bullpen. What you really want to hear is the 'ambient noise of continuous conversation' as Simon 'walking thesaurus' Baker would say :)
Gardening needs a
light touch to be effective. Be aware of what's going on with the team and intervene only when you notice something occuring that is either contrary to the agreed norms or disrupting the flow of cards to
done. When you do intervene make sure your delivery is well thought out, explain clearly what you have observed and why you think the team should take notice. From here you can faciliate the team to identify any root cause(s) and agree appropriate action. It's useful to keep a log of your observations. It will help you spot patterns over time that can be addressed more thoroughly in retrospectives.
Labels: builds, cards, communication, facilitator, gardening, pair-programming
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Beer helped
When Energized Work turned
one year old back in June we started to give a lot more attention to our ideas to develop the company. We decided it was time for action. While
attending Agile2008 in Toronto, we talked and talked over
beers in the bar at the top of the
CN Tower and talked some more in
Fynn's of Temple Bar. Since then we've been beavering away behind the scenes, occasionally alluding to progress in my
Tweets.
Without saying too much too soon, the essence of our thoughts was to make Energized Work a personification of Gus and myself - our values, the principles we work and live our lives by, our attitude and the chemistry we create when we work together. We've acquired a bit of a reputation for our 'no compromise' approach to creating software. We've taken flak but we've also been commended for our determination and resolute belief in our values and principles. Each to their own, I say. I didn't always say that. Our 'own' is working our way and having ridiculous amounts of fun. I see 'no compromise' and a crazy-eyed focus on craftsmanship and quality as strengths and differentiators to be marketed.
Recently,
Jason Gorman asked:
Could a recession open up the market for high-quality 'boutique' software development, where customers might be more inclined to take a bet on a start-up with great talent (based on their track record) and a commitment to delivering demonstrably high-quality? I hope he's onto something because it's exactly where we decided to take Energized Work when we were sitting up top in the
CN Tower in the Summer.
Back in December 2007 following our
session at
XPDAY,
Steve Freeman mentioned us and said: [Energized Work]
got the job because they don't compromise on the stuff they think is important and they managed to find a client that likes that. Is this every client in the world? No, but then it doesn't have to be.Exactly. We want to work with clients who actually recognise their software as an asset, want to improve how they work, and are prepared to invest. We want to work with clients who value the same things we do and we're resetting Energized Work to go find them. I'll talk a little more about this in my next post.
Labels: energizedwork, quality, values
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The ultimate Product Stream?
Steve Freeman sent me a link to what I think could be
the ultimate product stream arrangement. It's a long article but stick with it and look at the photos closely. Definitely very impressive stuff!
Labels: lean productstream
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