Agile

My Agile Life: Only Me

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s LinkedIn, and Steve’s Tumblr)

(My continuing “Agile Life” column, where I use Scrum for a more balanced and productive life continues).

The Blame Game is the bane of good organization, good companies, good productivity, and happiness. Yet, how many times do we blame others for problems automatically? How many times have we been blamed for problems automatically?  How many great projects have failed because people fling blame at each other?

OK we know the answer; a lot.

When I began doing my Agile Life, I had a most interesting experience; I had only myself to blame for anything.  I was the only responsible one when most anything went wrong.

Something was late? My fault. Something not done well? My fault. Very, very few cases of things that wreren’t due to me. To blame anyone else would have required a Herculean effort of self-delusion that I just don’t have the energy or lack of morals for.

This was awesome.

Because I am the major or only cause of failure, I am aware of why things go wrong.

Because I am the major or only cause of failure, I know what to improve.

Because I am the major or only cause of failure, I must acknowledge my flaws.

Because I am the major or only cause of failure, I am the major source of success.

Agile is about a mixture of heavy personal responsibility and team responsibility teaches you a lot about dealing with failure.  This personal Agile experience is an excellent compliment to group Agile because it teaches you that responsibility very, very fast.

I’ve also become much, much more aware of my own flaws and mistakes – what I do wrong, what I do write, and how I screw up. I’m a much better person for doing personal Agile.

Of course it’s also painful. I have work habits that are a bit bizarre seen from the outside (mixing casual, obsessive, distractable, and focused). My Scrum Master abilities focus a bit too much on the rituals with the idea they’ll help fix things “eventually.” My “Product Owner” side can forget my “Scrum Master side’s” recommendations on unfamiliar work and forge ahead on spewing ideas to my “Team Member” side.

But at least I have all these insights. I can’t blame anyone else.

Which is great.  Are you ready to try Agile in your life and learn your flaws?

– Steve

Eat Your Failure: Agile is Failure Absorbent

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s LinkedIn, and Steve’s Tumblr)

(My continuing “Agile Life” column, where I use Scrum for a more balanced and productive life continues).
So let’s be honest, May was not my greatest month. Sure, I got things done but plotting my first novel took over twice the time expected and isn’t done yet. I only wrote 84% of what I wanted for the minibooks. I had to hold off many small project due to time an illness, business, and allergies.

I honestly felt bad. I had failed. That was bad, right?

Wrong. Agile methods are about responding to change and learning. They are not failure avoidant, they are failure absorbent; failure is expected, learned from, and worked into the process.

OK I still feel bad, but I don’t have to – that’s not Agile – it’s just my own neuroses. I’m not used to absorbing failure – nor are many other people or groups.

Most organizations are failure avoidant – and because of that they fail even more. Nothing ensures learning slowly, having neurotic relations, continuing the blame game, and adapting poorly than being failure avoidant. I’m sure you’ve been in failure avoidant situations – it’s bad at work and worse with yourself.

Failure absorbency is a major part of Agile philosophy and methods. The goal of Agile is to be able to respond quickly, using communication and responsiveness to change to allow you to deliver work faster and better. Agile expects failure. Agile practices eat failure and use it to become stronger.

The only thing to feel bad about is not responding to failure appropriately. Though I suppose that’s a separate failure you can then respond appropriately too.

When you fail in Agile you should review, learn, and figure out how to adapt and do better. It’s not what you did wrong, it’s what you learned and how you adapt. Eat your failure.

So what did I learn:

  • TOO MANY ANKLEBITERS: I assigned too many small tasks that I didn’t need or I should have done to “clear the plate.”
  • TIMESHIFTING:Some of these tasks could have been timeshifted better – there’ a few cases where I just figured I’d get to them.
  • TOO PACKED: I had no room for disruption baked into my plans despite having so much going on yet having so much free time.
  • POOR PLANNING DUE TO OVERCONFIDENCE: I didn’t plan out the novel plotting well at all as noted; it may be this novel is going to be far less timebound and far more about iteration.
  • OVERCOMMITMENT: The Novel didn’t just take longer, I had to literally “back my mind out” of work that held up my imagination. It’s like writing code before the design research is done – an then you don’t want to change the code.

Now how do I deal with this?

  • Review tasks better to make sure I really need to do them – success if often measured in what’s not done or needed.
  • For truly new project, like my novel, watch my time estimates on early stages and give myself space to do them write. Also, don’t overdesign/overdetail or not back out.
  • Get a better sense of my velocity so I don’t overload myself (which I think I’ll have end of this month).
  • Better pace myself, which is part of velocity.
  • It’s probably better to find I have spare time in a sprint then to overload myself – If I have spare time I can start taking items out of my backlog. Again focus on what’s needed.
  • I’ll review going to two week sprints in July – it’d make me much more adaptable.  However I think long term my life will evolve from Agile to Kanban.
  • I still run too many projects at once – the Minibooks being a classic example of trying to do them over time, and that writing can just turn into a distraction.

So that’s how I adsorb failure – getting better.

This has made me even rethink how I’ve handled failure in my life. I tend to avoid it – then embrace it when it happens. Maybe I could just be a bit less avoidant early on.

– Steve

Steve’s Update 6/5/2017

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

It’s my weekly Scrum style standup for the audience – and you’ll notice it’s now Monday.  This is because yes, the week starts Sunday but those updates kind of invited me to move more week stuff into my weekend.  So now updates are Monday..

And now on to what’s up!

What’s Up For The June Sprint?

  • First, Way With Worlds Minibook #1 will drop eom.
  • Speaking at Hydra Comic Con.
  • Finishing the full plot outline and writing the first chapter of “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet” hopefully.
  • Donating some books to libraries.
  • A few social events.

So what have I done the last week?

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  Got behind on this, trying to get back to it.  I think I’m kinda of tired writing these, so maybe book #6 just needs to be done in one go.
  • Social: Finished up Fanime.
  • Her Eternal Moonlight: The sale completed!
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I think I’m back on track.  I’ve got an expanded plot outline done more or less on time.

What am I going to do this week:

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  Try to, well . . . write for it.
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” I’m going to finish up the full plot outline – scene for scene – this weekend.  This is the big one.  If I can get this to work I’m ready to write.  Not 100% sure I’ll do it, but let’s give it a shot!
  • Writing: More blog posts – now alternating my agile findings and my writing experiences.

Challenges and blockers:

  • My allergies are back, so we’ll see how bad that hits me.
  • I realized I’ve not done any new generators – I might shift some priorities to do a fun one.

– Steve