I’m staying at a lovely hotel this week, speaking at a conference. For me, the bed is comfortable except for the pillows. The feather pillows scrunch down where my head is and raise up around my ears. I don’t feel the benefit of a raised head. I asked for foam pillows. The lovely housekeeping person brought […]
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It’s July 4, here in the US, our Independence Day. We celebrate with parades, cookouts, and fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks. I’m a fan of watching fireworks. And, I’m a fan of independence. And, I bet my notion of independence might not be the same as yours. Here’s what independence means to me: I
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I was thinking about resilience and redundancy a lot this week. We had a big weekend last week (we gained a son-in-law) so this week was a week of what I like to call “preventative maintenance.” We had doctor’s appointments, car appointments, and the tree guys came to cut back some of our trees. I
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In the comments for What’s the Difference Between Problem Whining and Problem Solving?, I spoke about a couple of different things: Being attached to the process or being attached to the outcome/result Perceived or real lack of choices with respect to the outcome In this post, I’ll address what we might attach to: the process or
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How do you feel about change: do you like what’s new or what works? Sometimes I like new things. I love to try new recipes—often with company! I’ll try new software without a second thought. I’ll try various processes for my own work, especially if I think I’ll get a throughput bump. I especially like
Do You Want What’s New or What Works? Read More »
I was thinking about some of the changes my clients are considering. Most of them want to use agile approaches, all the way through the organization. A laudable goal because it will produce the business results they want to see. What’s the first thing people can do? Change their behavior. Not change their system. Not
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I like to build habits for things I want to do more of and less of. I’ve been writing like mad these days: blogging here and on my business site, writing a geographically distributed teams book with a colleague, and writing other articles and books. I’ve been writing every day—not necessarily a lot, but every
Are You On a Streak? Read More »
I was watching Ken Robinson on Passion. He made the claim that too many people live lives that are not fulfilling. Your work drains you. Instead, what energizes you? I reflected on my life. I am lucky. I found many parts of my professional life that energize me: Anything about product development energizes me: programming,
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I prefer not to make mistakes. Yet, I am human. I make mistakes all the time. Making mistakes is not the problem. It’s the recovering from mistakes that might be the problem. How quickly you recover from mistakes is partly about seeing the need to adapt, your ability to respond to a changed situation, and
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I take multiple walks through my neighborhood to get my steps in. Most of the time, I pass the houses and it’s quiet, just me and my rollator and my thoughts. One house, however, has a totally adorable little white dog on the first floor. Every time I pass by that house, the dog barks
Who’s Your Guard Dog? Read More »