A whole lotta fun to be had
We're going to have a fun day on Friday to celebrate the success of our most recent client work.
We'll start the day at
My Old Dutch Pancake House for brunch and a retrospective. As we do every week, we'll be seeking some small
actions to drive our continuous improvement. In the afternoon we'll hit the
Bloomsbury Bowling to shoot some pool and do some ten pin bowling while engaging in a 'beerstorm', i.e. brainstorming fuelled by beer. I'm keen to stimulate some transformative ideas that could take us to a whole new place. I have no preconceived notions and I'm excited to see what the team comes up with.
It's both productive and revealing to do things like retrospectives and brainstorming in a social setting filled with jokes and laughs,
nom and drinkies. People relax, drop their guard, are less defensive and generally more open to things. And, importantly, our friendship helps avoid anything said being taken as offensive.
Labels: fun, kaikaku, kaizen, retrospective
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What makes us tick
We're working on a new Web site with
Tim Nicholls from
Electric Light Box and we did some concept work to develop a brand that captures what we're about here at Energized Work. You'll see the visual brand when the site launches but I wanted to share what we've come up with on how we see ourselves. If you read this blog (or know us) you'll know that we're pretty straight-talking and say what we mean. When we wrote
The Energized Way to describe how we work we used short, sharp, punchy statments. We wanted to use the same approach to capture our ethos. Here's what we came up with:
We show AWARENESS- We see the big picture
- We sense what is important
- We are tuned in
- We see options
We seek CLARITY- We strive for simplicity
- We pursue a vision with purpose
- We are totally focused
- We say what we mean
We build UNITY- We are a team
- We collaborate intensively
- We appreciate diversity
- We invest in friendship
We pursue EXCELLENCE- We are craftsmen
- We have discipline
- We harness innovation
- We deliver
We have the right ATTITUDE- We know our stuff
- We shoulder responsibility
- We operate with integrity
- We are brutally honest
- We are humble
We are FUN- We create energy
- We enjoy what we do
- We are fun to work with
- We are refreshing
Labels: energizedwork, values
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'No excuses' done done
Yesterday at
QCon London, Gus and Kris talked about how we at
Energized Work get from
concept to cash every week. It's a simple message really.
Keep it moving:- Sustain throughput and maximize profit by 'shipping' running tested features to production at least every week.
- Automate everything to achieve mobility and continuously invest in it to keep it cheap.
- Don't track bugs, fix 'em.
- Manage debt to keep moving fast.
Keep it working:- Eliminate individual anxiety and keep the team resilient by pair-programming all the time.
- Roll ownership of each story through the team to facilitate collective ownership and knowledge transfer.
- Maintain a rigourous test-driven approach through personal discipline.
- Colocate because the conversations never stop.
- Learn what's really needed by iterating with a full-time onsite customer at the wheel.
Keep it together:- Don't branch and don't stay away from the trunk for longer than 2 hours.
- The build monitors are the focal point.
- If the build breaks fix it immediately, otherwise what's the point of having it.
Keep it real:- Operate all the environments, including production, yourselves. And do your own support.
- Non-functional and sysadmin work is part of development and not an afterthought nor someone elses responsibility.
- Optimize at the right time and always in context of 'the whole'.
Keep it coming:- Write stories to be a little ambiguous to ensure conversation happens.
- Plan just enough when it's needed to prevent stalling.
- Make the showcase count because the client will decide whether to invest more money.
This stuff is as hard or as easy as you want to make it. It's not enough to be doing the technical practices and it's not enough to be living the values and principles. You gotta do it all and more, at the same time, learning all the while. It takes courage, willpower and
zeal. And, dare I say, you gotta know what you're doing. There really are no excuses. Ultimately, for me, it comes down to
having the right people, creating the right environment and working with the right clients.
Here are the
slides (they're better quality than those downloadable from the
QCon site).
When I get the official feedback on the session I'll post it here.
Labels: craftsmanship, qcon
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Actions from retrospectives
A retrospective is pretty pointless if you don't come out of it with an action, which you then take in the next iteration.
An action should be small, specific and clearly defined on a card; can be taken immediately; starts something new and good, rather than stops something bad.
Labels: retrospective
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