scrum

My Agile Life: Fix A Few Things

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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).

Many Agile methods use some kind of retrospective to review and improve. I adore them but find they can drag for two reasons: sometimes people hate them and sometimes people go overboard.  It can become a venting session or it can become a case of people shutting down.

Personal retrospectives can be a drag as well for the same reasons, though I find it tends towards the “overboard.”

I find that the “overboard” and the “underboard” are part of the same problem – that retrospectives can be overwhelming.  If you want to discuss what went wrong on a sprint or on a project, you can probably easily find tend or even hundreds of things.  This can lead to people endlessly listing off problems – and people trying to ignore then because there’s so many (and their egos feel threatened).

A retrospective needs you to both focus and not be afraid.

What I’ve learned both as an Agilist and in my own life (where I can’t escape any of this) is that you need to limit what you try to improve. When you focus on one or two or a few things to get right, you can get them done – focus on every problem and you’ll never start, or you just won’t try and review your work.

Besides, as you focus on a limited amount of improvements you can also reinforce the issue that many of the problems that came up were already taken care of.  All those hundreds of problems got taken care of by reasonably mature people or a reasonably mature person and it’s probably not worth going over.  Focus on what needs to be improved.

On top of that, the focus on a limited number of issues can take your ego out of it.  You ignore the vast amount of things you can complain about to focus on things you can and want to fix.  It tones down the fear you may feel of going over the many things that did go wrong, dealt with or not.

I’ve found the “power of Few” to be very helpful in that I can focus on getting better in specific ways – ways that have real value.  Plus it doesn’t’ trigger any insecurities

As an addendum, you should always seek to improve outside of reviews and goals. Good opportunities to get better abound all the time, and seizing on them is a big part of an Agile Mindset. It also helps you get used to facing and fixing problems on the fly – so they don’t gum up your retrospectives (and your self-esteem).

(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: Failure

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

I’m talking my “Agile Life” experiment where I use the Agile techniques in Scrum in my everyday life.  Well, it doesn’t always work, so let’s talk failure – specifically something that went bad this Sprint of May.

As you know one of my goals for the May Sprint was to plot a new novel and write chapter 1. That has partially failed – which is a great time to examine what I did wrong and talk failure.

Agile methods are all about learning as opposed to shame.  We all make mistakes, we all have discoveries of what we didn’t know, so the goal is to learn and adapt.

So first, let’s see what happened:

  • I was going to start a new novel, “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet,” an SF/Fantasy mix.
  • I was going to use a lot of the techniques I’d used before to write it – heavy setting detail, iterative plotting. Just on a larger scale.
  • I found things not feeling “right.” The plot was stale, parts came and went, I didn’t feel I had a grasp on the story – I had about 60% of it but something felt off.
  • After analysis I realized I didn’t have a good a grasp as I thought, it wasn’t quite “alive.” There were good parts – there were *great* parts. But it felt half-made.

So now the questions come in – “Why.”

There’s a great technique called “The Five Whys” that I learned – basically to solve a problem, ask why – and when you get an answer, ask why again. Soon you’ll get to the cause, part of the cause, or one of the causes.

  • WHY did it feel wrong? Because it was. It was patchwork.
  • WHY did it feel patchwork? Because some parts were far more fleshed-out than others and they conflicted due to that.
  • WHY are they half fleshed-out? Because my designing was erratic.
  • WHY was my designing erratic? Because I dived in and didn’t think of what I needed to do as a specific set of tasks.
  • WHY did I do that? Because I didn’t think I’d need it, I’d just dive in as I’ve done this before.

I came to realize I got a bit arrogant. I’ve written and built worlds for 40 years. I’ve published books. I should be able to dive into this right because I’ve done so many similar things?

Yep, I should – if I had thought ahead. But I didn’t think about what was needed, didn’t look at my techniques, didn’t break down the work. If this had been a programming project, it’d be the Product Owner and an Engineer saying “hey, we know how to do this easy, so let’s just block out some time” without the Scrum Master saying “why do you think this doesn’t need the usual level of analysis?”

What I should have done is use all my techniques and experience to design a better plan – how long it’d take for this tasks, what tasks were needed, and so on.  It would have made me think, made me more aware of the work needed, and how that work tied together.

Lesson learned – in writing, like anything else, a good work breakdown is needed.  Just because you might be able to do it “from the gut” is no reason not to think it over – especially when you’re getting back in the swing of things.  Had this not been a novel but a shorter work I might not have caught this mistake.

Now of course after finding this the goal is to get back on track. How am I doing that?

  1. I will focus this month on plotting – any time meant for Chapter 1 now moves to plotting.  That helps me get a timeframe.  It’s still adding work to my sprint, so I may move out other plans – since getting this done is important, and spreading it out too much may mean it loses coherence.
  2. Writing is moving out by one month at least – maybe two.  But I’ll try to do Chapter One next month and then slowly ramp up.
  3. To plot the book I am breaking it down into tasks required to get a full plot outline that I can write from.  It’s really more of a product design process or a research task.  I may write up more on that depending how it goes.

The story quality is already looking much better, and I learned something about my own creativity. Also the story may have a slightly off kilter Technomancer riding a motorcycle on top of a moving train, so there’s that.

A good lesson on many grounds.

– Steve

Steve’s Update 5/21/2017

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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.

Well bluntly this week also was nuts, with assorted work events, a friend having health concerns (resolved) and of course occasional allergies.  It’s not been the greatest week – but Agile method are about adapting.  So where are we?

So what have I done the last week?

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5: Still going good and on schedule – I might even get a bit ahead of the game.
  • Seventh Sanctum Spotlight: That’s on hold.  This is due to the interruptions I’ve been having from allergies to events, and now convention time might cut into the results for me and other people.  So I’ll do it in June if it seems viable.
  • Professional: Attended that professional event – they’re running out of space so I found my apartment complex can host them!  A great way to network and meet people.
  • Social: Girlfriend’s birthday and book club went well.
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” The latest plot outlines and character arcs are plotted.  Looks good again, and I think the book is taking on a more personal tone; for instance, there’s two minor characters (one extremely minor as in he’s in one scene) that by exploring I really did a  lot with the story.  This is a good lesson from the late Sir Terry Pratchett – you tell a lot more by having it personal, even if that person is gone after a scene.
  • Newsletter: The newsletter is out.  Which you probably saw.

What am I going to do this week:

  • Way With Worlds Minibook #5:  More writing.  Let’s just assume that’s the norm (and book #6 is next).  I’m thinking these books are best written in one or two big lumps not spread out.
  • Social: Fanime is going to consume a lot of time this week, as will events there.  I’ll be preparing presentations.
  • Speaking: I’m speaking twice at Fanime.
  • Cosplay: I’ll be Doctor Oobleck from RWBY at least one day.
  • Her Eternal Moonlight: A sale is coming, so pay attention . . .
  • “A Bridge To The Quiet Planet:” Next step is fleshing out the plot so it’s ready to be scene-for-scene outlined, as well as some character details.e

Challenges and blockers:

  • The Allergies are better, but I’m keeping an eye on them.  These were bad and hit a lot of people hard.

– Steve