Posts

Posted on

Changes and a Grand Experiment

After more than 20 years of blogging across four different domains, I’m changing platforms from self-hosting (WordPress, mostly) to Substack. I hope this pivot will simplify the technical side of my life and allow me to focus more on writing.

Please visit The Stoic Agilist on Substack and support my writing efforts by subscribing. You can also visit StoicAgilist.com (self-hosted on WordPress, of course) to view the same posts that appear on Substack except they will be published approximately four weeks later than they appear on Substack. Subscriber only content will only be available on Substack.

The posts that remain available on The Agile Fieldbook are a matter of record that I wish to remain public.

Posted on

The Emotional Bumblebee

I finished Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book, “How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain,” this past week. It’s the latest exploration in my decades-long journey to better understand myself and others. There’s a lot in this book and it’s been a paradigm shift for me personally. I expect the effects from the insights gained from Dr. Barrett’s work in my professional life will be equally seismic.

As part of this exploration and effort to understand what Dr. Barrett and others are discovering, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to organize and assimilate information. For years I’ve used mind mapping and its served me well. I continue to use this approach almost daily. Ah, but the relentless advancement of technology has resulted in new tools. My current favorite (meaning the one that so far matches how my brain seems to work) is a tool called Obsidian. It’s new and is evolving quickly. I’ve been using Obsidian to organize and study cognitive biases in a way similar to Buster Benson’s work. This past weekend I began a similar process with emotions based on Dr. Barrett’s work.

It’s early but it has already yielded many important insights and benefits. I began by collecting as many words I could find (currently, 514) that are used to describe emotional states or patterns. I then entered them into Obsidian, each connected to a single node, “Words that express emotion.” Here’s a partial screen capture of the Obsidian graph:

The graph is too big to fit on a single screen and have the words show. And Obsidian does not yet have an export feature for graphs into a standard image file. So I’m limited by screen real estate. Where I take this next…I’m not sure, actually. Probably a cycle of refinement and deep dive into definitions and descriptions. I can foresee the creation of a real-time tool for assessing emotional states using a circumplex. Lots of experimentation ahead.

There is a dynamic quality to the graphs in Obsidian that is part of the fun and path-to-insights with the information. I’ve created a video to show the effect and set it to Nikolai Riminsky-Korsakov’s orchestral interlude “Flight of Bumblebee.” If/when you read Dr. Barrett’s book, you will understand why I selected the bee theme. It’s a virtual emotional bee hive inside our heads and bodies. Be sure to expand the video to full screen for maximum effect. Enjoy!

Posted on

Memorial Day, 2020

I have forgotten where I discovered this picture. It was many years ago. I do not know who these men are or when and where this picture was taken. (If you know, please drop me a line.) I’ve copies of it on virtually every chunk of technology I own that’s capable of showing pictures as a frequent reminder and image for contemplation. It is rich in meaning in many different ways.

Judging by the amount of surrounding destruction, I’d guess these men are deep into Europe, perhaps even Germany. The uniforms suggest Spring, perhaps. Not warm enough for Summer, not cold enough for Winter. Perhaps they are toasting VE day, perhaps having survived the liberation of yet another city, perhaps having survived a recent battle, or maybe just celebrating being alive in the moment.

The soldier on the left appears to have what looks like a Thompson submachine gun on his lap, suggesting things in the area are not as casual as the wine bottle and raised glasses might suggest.

To all who have served us in the defense of Freedom and Liberty: My sincere and deep appreciation and most humble thanks.

Posted on

What to do while on “vacation” during a pandemic.

Build a Torii Gate, of course.

A vacation originally planed for this week in Utah was scrubbed. So a significant pivot was in order. Priorities, plans, and schedules shifted and forward motion was begun once again.

I wanted to build a Torii Gate on the East side of my property for several years. The gate and fence that was there worked well enough so it never made it very far up on the backlog. That changed last fall when the Chinook winds – which are frequent, sudden, and fierce in this part of the country – snapped  the two supporting gate posts. (The same storm also blew off the gate on the North side of the property, but that’s another project.) The gate and fence have been braced up by 2×4’s all winter. Not a good look.

Worked on the hashira (posts) over the winter. They needed to withstand the Chinooks. So, 6′ steel post – 3′ bolted within 3 2x6x10s and 3′ sunk into a concrete base – ought to hold for a while.

Time to begin the outside work.

First post had to be set perfectly. This is after it had set for a few days and most of the supports had been pulled away.

Next, the nuki (lower beam) and the shimagi and kasagi (two upper beams.)

Add a little extra flair trim to the kasagi, stain, and seal.

All that was need to complete the Torii gate part of the gate was the gakuzuka – a small brace in the center between the shimagi and kasagi – with an inscription. The weather intervened and brought us about 9″ of fresh snow.

Weather cleared, snow melted, still self-isolating – back to work to build and install the new swinging gate.

Next, dress up the top of the swinging gate with a pattern to match the fence on the north side of the property.

Finally, add the gakuzuka. The Japanese kanji on the way into the gate is “Love.” Find love here, all ye who enter.

The kanji on the way out through the gate is “Peace.” Take peace with you into the world.

Add an exterior handle crafted from ceder and the gate is done. The street view is quite nice, even before the summer vines and surrounding flowers wake up.

Time now to clean up the work site and do a little path repair.

Update – 2020.07.25

Just following a rain storm and the summer foliage starting to grow back.

Posted on

Working with Distributed Teams

I’ve coached and served as scrum master for dozens of remote teams over the years. In light of current events, I’ve posted a collation of the notes I have for helping distributed teams working effectively.

The rule is, if one person on a team is participating from a remote location, the team is a distributed team. Making distinctions such as “distributed team” vs. “fully distributed team” when some or all members of the team are working from remote locations risks marginalizing team members who are working at locations away from the home or central office. 

To help ensure that the concept of “team” remains intact during distributed team conditions, this post is intended to serve as a guide for scrum masters for how best to facilitate and monitor team interactions and performance with distributed teams. 

Scrum masters have the added burden of developing the skills within their teams for effective distributed team collaboration and communication. Distributed teams can function better than collocated teams when the team’s skills for organization and communication have been improved by necessity such that they are better positioned to function effectively as a team. 

Etiquette 

 Even with ideal conditions (i.e. plenty of bandwidth for audio and video, intra-team familiarity, clear agenda, etc.) working with distributed teams will always have a degree of asynchronous communication. Fields of vision are limited to what’s in frame for the video camera, network latency issues, and a general lack of access to in-person non-verbal cues will cause people to speak over and interrupt each other and miss-read intent more than they would during in-person meetings. To mitigate these constraints, it is important to have a well understood and practiced set of etiquette rules for distributed team meetings. 

Pre-meeting Tasks 

  • The principle challenge is to keep everyone on the team focused. Shorter, more frequent meetings are better than long meetings that invite participants to “multi-task” out of boredom. Invite essential people to the meeting. Use of a responsibility assignment matrix is a very useful tool for determining who to invite. People associated with the “consulted” or “informed” roles generally don’t need to be invited to formal Scrum meetings. 
  • Communicate an agenda – however sparse – prior to the meeting. Let the team know what the purpose and objectives of the meeting are so everyone knows when they are done. Agendas are scope management tools and help keep the meeting focused. Set the expectation the everyone on the team will be aware of the agenda prior to the start of the meeting. 
  • Ensure that all the necessary equipment is in working order and that all team members have verified connectivity. Test screen sharing capabilities and application accessibility prior to the meeting. 
  • It is preferred that the scrum master host the on-line meeting so that on the rare occasion they may need to take control of the meeting by muting or bumping someone from the meeting they may do so. 
  • Set the expectation that team members will participate from a location that is free from background noise and other distractions. Joining from coffee shops or while driving is to be discouraged as they end up being distractions for the entire team. 
  • Coach the team for how to take turns in a conversation. 
  • Coach the team on how to use any mute features. 
  • The rules of common courtesy apply to on-line meetings. If we wouldn’t accept a behavior in a face-to-face meeting, it shouldn’t be accepted in an on-line meeting either. 
  • Turn off notifications from applications such as email and instant messaging. 
  • Meeting participants need to be aware of what’s in the visual and auditory background and work to anticipate and mitigate potential interruptions.

In-Progress Meeting Activities 

  • Continue to stress that team members be on time for the meeting. Set the expectation that they will join on-line several minutes early to accommodate any last-minute technical issues. 
  • Meetings serve both a practical and social purpose for distributed teams. Allow time for casual conversation (and still expect everyone to be one time) as it is critical to building and maintaining rapport among distributed team members. Small talk, catching up, sharing interesting news bits, interesting (short) stories – any of these helps make the on-line meeting a more enjoyable experience and help set a positive tone for the duration. 
  • If a team member joins a meeting late, they should not announce to the team they have arrived. Doing will potentially disrupt a conversation already in progress.  
  • When a team member needs to contribute to a conversation while others are talking, the best approach is to state, “I have a comment.” or “I have a question.” and then pause. This serves as a signal to the team that you wish to speak. Either the conversation will naturally break, or the scrum master can listen for a break and offer the team member the opportunity to speak. The natural in-person behavior is to simply start talking. With distributed teams this frequently leads to several people talking at once and a degradation in communication.  
  • Ask for the opinion of someone on the team who has not yet participated in the meeting or has been silent for a period of time. This will help keep them focused on the meeting if they know they may be asked a question. 
  • Team members should leave a comment in the meeting chat window if they need to step away from the meeting for a short time or leave the meeting. Announcing such departures tend to be disruptive, but the team will likely need to know if any team members are not absent from the meeting.
  • Remain attentive to anyone who is dominating the conversation or otherwise preventing others from contributing. 
  • For stand-ups, call out the person who is going to start the conversation. Assign that person the task of choosing the next person to speak and so on until everyone has had their turn at contributing. This will help keep each team member’s attention as they will not sure when they will be called on. Similarly (but less desirable) randomly call on team members and vary the pattern day-to-day. 
  • When conducting a meeting where only one or two people are attending remotely, ensure that both the conference room and the remote individuals are using video. This will allow for additional non-verbal cues to be included in the communication and help keep the conference room aware that one or more of their team members is attending remotely. 
  • Leverage chat for one-off conversations or bringing non-priority items to the host’s attention 
  • If video is in use, be aware of the need for patience when waiting for network latency to catch up with any shared screens. 
  • Start the meeting with everyone on video. After a few minutes for casual conversation and catching up, allow team members to switch off video to reduce bandwidth issues. 

End-of-Meeting Activities 

  • Provide a recap of what was accomplished and identify any of the goal or agenda items were not addressed. 
  • State any next steps. 
  • State any action items and the names of people responsible for completing them. Action items without assigned names are in-action items. 

Troubleshooting 

  • If a member of the team has a pattern of responding to questions with some version of “I didn’t understand the question. Can you restate it?” or they have to be prompted with “Are you there?” due to a non-response, there is a likelihood that they are not focused on the meeting and busy with something else. If the pattern is persistent, the scrum master will need to discuss this with the team member off-line. 
  • Be attentive to the introverts on the team and work to have them contribute to each meeting. Ask them for their opinion or any open-ended question that has more than a yes-no answer. 
  • The metrics a scrum master may use to assess team participation and performance will need to be more robust than the usual data-based and subjective measures. Assessing morale or the presence of intra-team conflict may not be as apparent with distributed teams. Scrum masters may need to meet virtually one-to-one with each of the team members more frequently and asses any time management or morale issues.

References

Additional Articles

How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote by Erica Dhawan and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic 

SwiftFest Boston ’19: Remote Connections: Fostering Relationships in Distributed Teams

Photo by Tanya Nevidoma on Unsplash (Edited)

Posted on

Goals, Mission, and Purpose

Whenever you have trouble getting up in the morning, remind yourself that you’ve been made by nature for the purpose of working with others, whereas even unthinking animals share sleeping. And it’s our own natural purpose that is more fitting and more satisfying.Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.12

When I was much younger I had an obsession with defining and achieving goals. I’d codified my approach into an unpublished workbook titled “The Goal Mapping Process.” There was nothing particularly unique about this process. All it really accomplished was laying out a method for breaking goals down into achievable tasks and then reassembling them in to the larger goal. It was very tactical and it worked. At least it did for me and perhaps that’s why I never published it. Working out the method within a frame of something that others might see forced a level of rigor that I might not have otherwise applied. In the end, it was just another way of getting things done.

Later in life the realization that completing goals had an element of dissatisfaction came into focus. Achieving goals, even big goals, wasn’t enough. The question of “What next?” frequently presented a blank slate. Figuring out how to achieve the goal kept me busy, but there was rarely any thought about what was after the goal. Or more importantly, what the underlying purpose of the goal was in the first place. What I learned was that a goal in and of itself, while often necessary, wasn’t as important to my overall satisfaction with life than the purpose or mission behind the goal. Goals are destinations. Mission and purpose are journeys.

This realization is perhaps twenty five or more years old. It turns out, defining goals and breaking them down into their tactical pieces is relatively easy. Defining an underlying purpose that makes identifying the associated goals is harder. After twenty five years I believe I have worked out a purpose and mission that has been fairly stable for the past five years.

My mission and purpose was influenced by the story of a woman named Janet. She died in 2005 at the age of 51. For ten years preceding her death she had been fighting breast cancer. For most of that time, her diagnosis was “terminal.” The battle statistics are staggering: 55 chemotherapy treatments, many of them high dose; 33 radiation treatments; 4 major surgeries; and uncounted doctor’s appointments. This and so much more is what it took to stretch a two year survival prognosis into ten.

I know Janet’s story because I was with her for every one of her chemotherapy treatments, the recovery after, and for each of her surgeries.

I know Janet’s story because she died in my arms.

I know Janet’s story because she was my wife.

I taught her how to search for and read research articles using Usenet and the nascent World Wide Web. While I was working two jobs Janet was searching these and many other resources for anything that might suggest viable treatment options. This effort is worthy of it’s own post, but does not factor so prominently in my purpose and mission. What does is something we experienced during this process of research.

Due to our heightened interest, news stories that claimed to have some angle on a “cure for cancer” caught our attention. Whenever we heard such news bites, we’d eagerly take note and then work to chase down the details. Invariably, they would end in disappointment. The news had hyper-inflated the claims of the researchers, often to the chagrin of the researchers themselves. We learned to tune out these news stories (eventually, the news altogether.)

I can recall many times during Janet’s cancer battle when I thought of these researchers. Indeed, of all the people working to solve the cancer conundrum. While Janet slept, I’d watch the milliliters slowly drip from the IV bag during the hours it would take for her chemotherapy treatments to run their course. I’d imagine dedicated individuals working long hours to solve chemical problem or design devices that would eventually replace the barbaric “suicide/salvage” strategy of contemporary chemotherapy. These were often moments of despair and feelings of extreme isolation. We were on the dark side of the moon, hoping for signals that would show the way across the cancer cure threshold and bring us home.

In the end, they never came and Janet lost the battle.

I haven’t stopped thinking about the people who work to find a cure. Fifteen years later I find myself on the sunny side of Earth and in a position to help those working to solve the cancer conundrum. And I have to say, it isn’t how I imagined it would be.

There are certainly those who work long hours with a dedication that is both inspiring and humbling. But for the most part, there are people doing what people do – complaining, fighting for turf, lashing out over imagined offenses, scratching for more pay, finding ways to game the system, sinking to the lowest expected level of effort, defensive and afraid to correct bad behavior, perpetuating bad habits, blissfully unaware of cognitive biases that adversely affect their work, unaware yet aggressively protective their own limitations. It’s a lengthy list.

It is, as they say, a target rich environment for applying Agile principles and practices. The room for improvement pretty much matches the amount of space between here and the dark side of the moon.

One of the primary motivation devices in this environment are the success stories. And as well it should be. They are VERY moving and it’s impossible for me to see and hear the success stories of someone making it across the cancer cure threshold and not shed tears. For myself, there are also many untold stories which are similarly motivating and bring me to tears. These are the stories of those who did not make it across the cancer cure threshold but fought, like Janet, with everything they had while hoping a cure would be found before they lost the battle. The stories of the people who were fortunate to have been cured are examples of what we are trying to achieve. The stories of people who were not so fortunate are examples of why we need to find the most effective way possible for working together.

This is my purpose and my mission: Build teams that are communicating clearly and effectively, teams that understand both the value and limitations of diversity and inclusion, teams that are capable of uniting on well-reasoned goals, teams composed of compassionate individuals who are tirelessly seeking to understand themselves within the wider context and the longer view. Today, Agile principles and practices offer the greatest promise for fulfilling this purpose and achieving this mission. When something more effective emerges, I shall adapt accordingly.

Here’s to moving into 2020 with mind and eyes wide open.

Posted on

Coder’s Lullaby

[Sung to the tune of Woody Guthrie‘s Hobo’s Lullaby.]

Go to sleep you weary coder.
Let the output scroll on by.
Hear the cooling fans a hummin’.
That’s the coder’s lullaby.

Do not think about the deadlines.
Let the deadlines come and go.
Tonight you’ve got a nice warm cubie.
Safe from all the deadline woe.

Go to sleep you weary coder.
Let the output scroll on by.
Hear the cooling fans a hummin’.
That’s the coder’s lullaby.

I know the bosses cause you trouble.
They cause trouble everywhere
When you die and go to heaven,
You’ll find there are no bosses there.

Go to sleep you weary coder.
Let the output scroll on by.
Hear the cooling fans a hummin’.
That’s the coder’s lullaby.

Posted on

Responsibility and Improvement

Feral chickens on the Hawaiian Island of Kaua’i are ubiquitous. And they can be aggressive, particularly when they are roaming around common outdoor eating areas.

While the vast majority of visitors to the island honor the signs that say “Don’t Feed the Chickens,” all it takes is a couple of noob’s to put the operant conditioning in motion and keep it going with each new planeload of first-time and unaware visitors.

I watched the consequences of this play out during a recent trip to the island. I was enjoying a cup of coffee and a blueberry scone at The Spot in Princeville. (Side Bar: GO HERE! The food and coffee is FANTASTIC!) A young couple, obviously new to the island, collected their breakfast order at the service window, selected a table, and then went back to the service window to get utensils, napkins, and whatever else. Left unattended for less than 5 seconds, the chickens were on the table and a sizeable rooster had made off with a croissant.

I can only describe the woman’s response as upset and indignant. She promptly returned to the service window and asked – expectantly – for a replacement. To which The Spot employee directed her attention to the sign above the service windows that said, “DO NOT LEAVE FOOD UNATTENDED. Chickens are aggressive and will attack your food if not guarded. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHICKENS AND CANNOT REPLACE DAMAGED FOOD FOR YOU.”

There are two (at least) lessons to be learned from this. One by the patron and one by the owner of The Spot.

First, the patron. Five bucks (or whatever a croissant costs on Kaui’i) is a very cheap price to pay for a valuable lesson about not just the chickens on Kaua’i, but the very fact that the Rules of Life from wherever your point of origin was have changed. I’ve camped on this island many time over the years and if you are not mindful of the dangers and keep the fact you are not in Kansas any more foremost in your mind, it’s easy to get into trouble. It’s a stunningly beautiful part of the planet with many hidden dangers. Slip and fall on a muddy trail, for example, can be deadly. Lack of awareness of the rip tides and undertows at the beaches can be equally deadly.

So stay alert. Be aware. Read every sign you see. Study what the locals do. Ask questions. And do a little research before traveling to Hawai’i.

For the owner of the Spot, I have this suggestion: The chicken warning sign is written in black marker on brown paper. It’s also placed high in the service window where patrons collect their order. If there is a line out the door, it typically bends away from the service window. Patrons don’t come to the service windows until their name is called. When they do, their natural line of sight is down, looking at the super scrumptious food. It is certain their attention will be drawn away from the warning sign about the chickens (#1 in the picture below) as they focus on gathering their food (#2 in the picture below.)

Fine to keep the sign in the service window, but lower it so there’s a better chance the patrons will see it. Also, put it on white paper. Even better, put a duplicate sign on the inside of the shop viewable from where customers are paying for their food. While they are standing in line waiting to place their order and reading the menu on the wall for the 12th time they are more likely to read the chicken warning sign. Maybe include a cartoon image of a rooster running off with a croissant.

This won’t “fix” the problems the unaware types bring with them onto the island, but I suspect it will cut down on the number of self-entitled noob’s demanding compensation for their lack of awareness. I’d like for The Spot to do everything they can to succeed, which means controlling costs and satisfying customers. I’d also like for the noob’s to gain some self-awareness and take that back home with them.

Win-win.

(I dropped a note to the owners of The Spot with these suggestions. They replied that they liked them and plan to implement these simple changes. If you’re in the area, send me a note, maybe with a picture, as to whether or not the sign has changed. If so, ask if the changes made any difference! Always good to know the results of any experiment.)

Posted on

Heroes

A bit of a break from what could be considered the usual theme of this blog to recognize several amazing heroes from World War II – Major General Maurice Rose and Corporal Clarence Smoyer. Both have a connection to Colorado, at least for today.

General Rose was educated in Denver and graduated from East High School in 1916. He lied about his age so that he could join the Colorado National Guard after graduating high school. Seventy four years ago today, General Rose was killed in action. He was the highest-ranking American killed by enemy fire in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. Rose Medical Center in Denver is named in his honor.

Corporal Smoyer, at age 95, is still with us. He served under General Rose and was in Denver today for a book signing – Adam Makos’ latest book, “Spearhead.” It was well worth the two hour wait to shake the man’s hand, thank him for his service, and – a distant third on the list – receive an autographed copy of the book.

(click to enlarge)

The plan was for Corporal Smoyer to ride in on a tank and stop in front of Union Station, the site of uncounted final “goodbye’s” during the war. Eighty trains a day, the Union Station historian said, arrived and departed from Denver in the early 1940’s carrying many young men on their way to war. Given it was a cold, wet, rainy-snowy day in Denver, the turnout was actually quite good.

Corporal Smoyer had ample escort!

(click to enlarge)

At long last, the Corporal arrived, mounted atop a WWII era Stewart tank. Although not the tank in which Corporal Smoyer went to war, it is the only civilian owned operable tank in Colorado.

(click to enlarge)

It took a little time to help the 95 year old soldier down from his mount. With his feet on solid ground, Corporal Smoyer stepped over to the Stewart tank and hung his handicap parking placard on the cannon barrel. Well play, sir. Well played.

(click to enlarge)

After a brief recounting of several stories and the unveiling of a commemorative painting to be hung in Union Station, he was off to begin signing copies of the book.

Today I shook the hand of a hero and am feeling profoundly grateful to Corporal Smoyer and all the men and women from his time that defeated a fearsome evil and preserved the Freedom of which I am a direct beneficiary.

(click to enlarge)