Agile

My Agile Life: Review Lets You Get It Right; Review Lets You Let Go Of Perfection

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

More on my use of “Agile” and Scrum in my life!

Perfection is the nemesis of success. The Perfect isn’t just the enemy of the good – sometimes the good is the enemy of ever accomplishing anything. Trying to get everything right can kill you, and sometimes even trying to get it really good is a barrier.

Sometimes you just have to complete something, review it, and improve it or do it again. Reviews are what let you get things done right – not trying to be perfect (which is not the same as being competent).

I learned this in my Agile Life efforts in, of all things – cleaning.

Cleaning is a regular effort – Business As Usual if you want to use bizspeak. It’s also something that may not always go perfect, from a difficult stain to not having a box to throw junk in. It’s also hard to get right as there’s always something else to do if you want to get obsessive.

So I had to do some cleaning and encountered a difficult issue in, of all things, the shower – nasty little stain. I didn’t have the proper cleaner, it seemed ridiculous to run out and buy it for five minutes work, and . . . I let it go. I’d get the stain cleaner at my next grocery run and get it next week.

By accepting yes, this stain wasn’t going to be a disaster, I avoided a half hour of running around for five minutes work I did the next week. Plus I learned to keep certain cleaning supplies on hand.

An agile way to do things – learn and improve and don’t sweat every detail. Delivering, review, and processing what you learn means you get better and waste less time.

Now cleaning is kind of a ridiculous example, but consider other places this applies:

  • If you’re writing something there’s only so right it’s going to be. That’s what editors, pre-readers, and just regular improvement will bring.
  • If you’re decorating the apartment do not think you’ll get it right the first time. Do your best and review it.
  • If you’re working on a web page and a photographer is late maybe you can make due with current photos – or what they sent you.

Finally, I’d note that if you’re doing something regularly – updating a website, cooking, etc. this is a REALLY good place to learn to let it go. Things that might not be perfect can get a bit more perfected next run.

I’d refer to the 10th Agile principle here: “Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.”

(By the way I do plenty of books for coaching people to improve in various areas, which may also help you out!)

– Steve

My Agile Life: Multitasking. Sort Of.

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

More on my use of “Agile” and Scrum in my life!

Agile methods tend to discourage multitasking as well as having a lot on your plate.  The goal is to avoid distractions (with less multitasking) and avoid having a lot on your mind (by limiting work in progress).  Of course, as we always get interrupted, we tend to multitask a bit.  Sometime things almost have to be done together or require such long delays (like a chat) that multitasking is almost needed.

Let me note that I do think you should avoid multitasking.  I do believe in limiting work in progress.  But there are times multitasking is fine or even good.

What I’ve found that in my own life, what helps is to identify what you can do while doing other things.  Preemptive multitasking as it were.

You know what I mean:

  • You’d like to watch some tv, but friends want to chat online – you can do both.
  • You’d like to come up with a shopping list which you can do while watching tv as it’s not a rush.
  • You want to do some online research, so you do it while chatting or on the phone – heck, the other person may have ideas.
  • And so on . . .

You’ll note a lot of this is recreational/social.  This is where I often multitask when doing things that are “gruntwork-like.” Not something requiring intense effort, nor intense focus, but things that have a lot of “bite sized” tasks so I can watch TV or chat to take the edge off.  Sometimes it even helps to have others around.

This has helped me timeshift a lot lately, as well as get more done.  Yes, it’s multitasking, but only when appropriate.

As  a note I will be the first to say that you should avoid multitasking when it reduces your ability to focus, get things done, or do them your best.  I usually do it when the multitasking is something more fun, or social, and so on.  Be careful when you do this until you learn what works for you.

However, if you make multitasking conscious, you can do it right.  You can also choose when not to do it because you’re more aware.

(By the way I do plenty of books for coaching people to improve in various areas, which may also help you out!)

– Steve

My Agile Life: Meetings

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

More on my use of “Agile” and Scrum in my life!  This is another one inspired by my personal agile, but a bit more focused on business.

Meetings are why we can’t reduce meetings.

I find my personal practice of Agile – with a one-man team – informing me about my work in the business world. Since I do all roles, since all information flows to and through me, I actually have a decent feel of what productivity is like because of personal Agile. Thanks to this experience, I can better see when things are messed up in the business world.

Lately, this reasonably decent personal workflow has made me see just how crazy meetings can make us. Trying to schedule them in my own life is tough enough; and then when you look at the job world . . .

We’re drowning in meetings. Sure we complain, but we keep doing them over and over again. We know they waste time. We know people don’t want to be there. We know the people on either side of us are checking Facebook.

We KEEP DOING MEETINGS.

Meetings are terribly inefficient, at least in the way they’re run. If you invite 20 people to a meeting that’s an hour long and each person gets 10 minutes of benefit out of it, then you spend 1200 minutes so people get 200 minutes of benefit. Sure, they may multitask and do other things, but they won’t do it well as if they were focused.

But we KEEP DOING MEETINGS.

I could list any number of reasons why pointless meetings are held, but I want to share a realization of why we don’t stop this insanity.

There are clear solutions to reducing, avoiding, or improving meetings. I’m sure three or four spring to mind as you read this, such as information radiators and quick check-ins. Despite having these clear solutions, we do not use them, and we’re back to 20 people in a room hating it.

Frustrating, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve tried.

Having worked to transform teams, improve process, and so on, I’m painfully aware that any attempts to change how people work takes time and effort. It also takes meetings, because you have to coordinate, plan, normalize, and so on. Getting rid of meetings . . . may take meetings.

That’s the bogeyman under the bed of meeting-reduction. If we want to get rid of meetings, we have to make an up-front effort to do so, and that effort may require meetings. People don’t want to do these meetings, and might not even have time for them.

We can’t reduce meetings because of all the meetings we have.

Really, it’s enough to drive one to drink. I recommend Licor 43.

What’s the way forward here? In the past, I resorted to either incremental changes or just barreling ahead. My personal Agile work helps as it provides me a lot of gut-level explanations and insights (like this) to share with people, which helps the situation. I’m hoping this personal insight helps people get around meeting-phobia.

But at some point, you’re gonna have to have that meeting. To stop meetings.

Yeah, I know.

(By the way I do plenty of books for coaching people to improve in various areas, which may also help you out!)

– Steve