Tag: project management

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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.

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Agile Interns

I had the privilege of presenting to a group of potential interns from the Colorado School of Mines interested in agile project management. Action shot…

The slide shows what we can offer them as interns: Failure, chaos, and confusion. I unpacked that as follows…

Failure

It’s important interns have the opportunity to learn how to fail in small, deliberate and safe increments along with the opportunity to learn how to extract every possible lesson from failures and how those failures lead to eventual success. Much of our business is driven by experimentation and hypothesis testing. Most of those experiments will fail, at least initially.

Chaos

We strive to be anti-fragile. One way to accomplish this is to be good at working under chaotic and ambiguous conditions. When involved with highly evolutionary design sessions, shifting sands can seem like the most solid ground around.

Confusion

One of the values for bringing interns into the organization is the fresh perspective they offer.  Why waste that on having them fetch coffee? However, interns can often be intimidated by working with people who have decades of experience under their belt. So it’s important they know they have the opportunity to work in an environment that expects questions and recognizes no one knows it all. They are in an environment that  seeks alternative points of view. In this organization, everyone gets their own coffee.