Scientific Ink

Tag: Agile/XP

  • Make it suck less

    So, I did it again. I have spent much of the last two days trying to edit a technical document into something that I can understand and that exceeds my standards for clear and informative writing. I’ve been line editing, I’ve been working on organization, I’ve been pinging subject matter experts for examples and to clarify points that do not come across well to me, I’ve been excising passive voice. Essentially, I’ve become a tech writer again. And I’m struggling. The document is due, I’m not happy with it, and I don’t think I can line edit my way to nirvana.

    I came home tonight frustrated, needing a break from the document, but fretting about the looming deadline. And then, sitting on my yoga mat starting my practice, I realized that I was trying to grope my way through this document towards the perfect document. And, I noticed I was wasting energy beating myself up for not knowing which thread to pull or which angle to pursue to get there.

    The place I used to work had several catchy phrases we used when we were stuck: “make mistakes faster” was one, “make it suck less” was another. They’re intertwined – “make mistakes faster” is an acknowledgement that we’ll make errors and omissions, but we can reduce their impact by conducting shorter project iterations and sharing work with each other more quickly. The spirit of “make it suck less” is to find satisfaction in incremental improvements. Instead of pining for the perfect solution, instead of whining about the lack of time, tools, or creativity to accomplish whatever unrealistic goal, take stock, prioritize the options, and make it as much better as you can.

    Basically, for me, the inverse of “make it suck less” is rampant, soul-throttling perfectionism that gets in the way of doing the little things that add together into the big things. It’s analysis paralysis, endless theorizing, pining for some ideal document/software program/website. It is trying too hard. It is Anne Lamott’s radio station KFKD – the double whammy of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing that gets in the way of getting any actual work done.

    Luckily, if I take a rest, go for a cycle ride, or do yoga, I give myself the space to notice that KFKD is on, I give myself the quiet to remember that that all I can do, all I need to do in this moment, is to “make it suck less”, to work with what I have and be patient.

  • Twitter is like stand-up all day long (this is good)

    Stand-up may be the highlight of my workday. There’s something about it–quick status updates, celebrating achievements, sharing milestones, the rhythm of it, team bonding, flagging confusion or misunderstandings, in-jokes (ending of course with “let’s be careful out there”), the ritual…

    We briefly tried chat standup, but it was annoying and boring, so we went back to verbal standup. We briefly considered using Campfire within Basecamp as a chat stand-up. It seemed like a good idea, there’d be a record associated with each project, but it seemed to be organized by project and therefore over compartmentalized. We didn’t try it and have stuck with verbal stand-up at 10:30AM.

    Recently, I’ve been twittering status messages. Twitter is like standup all day long, in a good way. Earlier this week, I was invited to a 10AM client conference call in an email I read at 8AM. I twittered that I had a surprise client meeting. A remote team member saw my twitter, IM’d me and asked if he needed to chime in on it. I might not have thought to ask him given the turnaround time, but he contributed.

    Yay standup, yay twitter, go team.

  • Business process and … reincarnation?

    E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company

    So, I’ve owned a copy of Michael E. Gerber’s E-Myth Mastery for about a year and a half now. Something about its size (over 400 pages) and the grandiose subtitle “The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company” put me off.

    I think the timing was also bad. I purchased it near the end of my stint as an independent. I am wise enough to say that stint was no failure, but I also felt that I simply could not do what I wanted to do (build and be on great teams) as an independent. To do that, I would have been (and was) dependent on a middleman or middle-agency. I wanted a bit more say in all that, so I joined up with some others (see previous posts such as “uninescapable the uncertainty cost of subcontracting” and “reusable practices“).

    I started out my life as an independent reading Gerber’s E-Myth Revisited, in which he argues that most people starting a business are undergoing a temporary entrepreneurial spasm and really have no idea what they’re getting into (casting themselves as the main technician/worker bee, the manager, and the salesperson). He argues that most of “us” aren’t cut out for being an entrepreneur. Many smart friends pressed that book on me, and I read it, and it was largely accurate. My interest is in systems of people, not in being alone, and I am a poor salesperson. I’d much rather tell you what’s wrong with whatever I’m selling than what’s right with it. So, I’m a living example of Gerber’s point. I’m smarter in a team than I am on my own.

    Anyway, I am in the first 100 pages of this tome, which I’ve been putting off because it looked like such an investment, and I realized by skimming the table of contents that he’ll get to the subtitle (the seven essential disciplines) in the second section of the book. Hmmm. The copyeditor in me is thinking maybe we can just strike large sections of the beginning. But, as I’m reading it, the first half is about practicing to think like an entrepreneur and practicing at removing the blocks we all put in our own way-blocks against change, resistance to following the good advice of others, blocks even against success. Essentially, this isn’t a “business book” at all, it is about transformation. Fascinating.

    Gerber even talks about heaven and hell. Now, I don’t have much patience with a cotton candy heaven or a firey inferno elsewhere. I think those concepts only make sense in the context of this very moment, in the situations we create for ourselves, in the situations that result from our own behavior. I believe I have responsibility for creating the conditions of my life, and I know I’m in control of my own response to situations and other people. It’s up to me whether I experience my day-to-day life as essentially positive or as tedious or worse. Gerber speaks to exactly this point, to taking responsibility for our own vision, and to the hell that we create for ourselves by reenacting old patterns of behavior that may have been useful in other situations but no longer apply.

    In The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, Ouspensky says that reincarnation is not what we’ve been led to think it is, but rather that we’re reborn to relieve exactly the same life we’ve lived, over and over again, until we make a significant choice in a moment to do something different than we’ve done it, life after life. In that moment we are instantly transformed. Ouspensky was saying that hell on earth is life as we have always lived it, and heaven on earth is breaking free of our long-standing patterns. I don’t have to tell you that it takes an enormous amount of energy, passion, determination, and will to even see the patterns, let alone break free of them.
    p. 37

    I suspect as I go further in the book, I’ll have very different things to say about it. I expected it to provide concrete recommendations for systems and practices to consider and implement, things I hope to apply to my day-to-day work. I didn’t expect it to connect so directly to yoga, to my meditation practice, and to self-transformation, but I suppose I already know better, that it is all connected. It is just fascinating to see the connections drawn so distinctly.

  • Colleagues

    So, a week ago already, I met two friends/former colleagues for coffee/tea. I joke that we’re all refugees, having left the same place when it had very little work. The three of us caught up on our current situations, shared a few successes, and commiserated over challenges. It was great: it helped me gain some perspective on what had been a challenging week at work, on the old place, and the transitions we had all made.

    Two of the three of us are on long-term contracts ending in December. I remember my own uncertainty last December, while there’s a part of me that misses that feeling of potential and that feeling of freedom, a larger part is relieved not to be revisiting that particular set of anxieties.

    Two of the three of us are maintaining some relationship with the old place. One is a current client, and I was fascinated to hear about life on the other side.

    None of us expressed regret about having left that particular set of problems

    • not enough work
    • no path for advancement/growth if there was work (cog mentality)
    • non-scalability of certain essential pieces of the process/team (we were all interchangeable and replaceable except for those that weren’t….)

    for our new problem sets, variously

    • insufficient process maturity
    • too much work/too little time
    • unrealistic expectations

    It’s not as if there are fewer challenges now, but I think that, at least for me, the new set is more palatable. Why is this? The only thing I can think of is that we each in our own way have a bit more agency in these new situations, and that we’re growing and learning different things, so it feels better.

    Anyway, it was great to catch up and feel the support and understanding of old friends.

  • Virtual-virtual standup?

    From Stephen: another variant on remote standup from 37 signals. Want to try it?

  • 12 signs of a great workplace

    First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

    When I read First Break All the Rules, I really identified with their list of 12 questions that differentiate good workplaces and high performers. This list helped articulate some important predictors of success and characteristics of failures I had experienced. Here, I have tried to link this list of 12 questions to what I liked and did not like in the XP environment where I used to work. Helene, Chris, and Tom, I’d love your feedback here.

    (more…)