Whenever I heard the term “pairing”, I used to think of wine and food. The process of combining certain wines with certain foods so that the unique texture, flavours and chemical compounds of one enhance the other to create a climatic dining experience. I am by no means, a wine connoisseur or a sommelier. The … Continue reading Pairing Beyond Programming
Most of the time, I didn’t see eye to eye with my late step-mother. However, on one occasion, I did. It was during the peak of the pandemic in late 2020. My step-mother was in the hospital and my dad was home alone. He was lamenting to her how it seemed everyone had forgotten his … Continue reading Get Rid of Employee Appreciation Day
When I help organizations learn, struggle through and embrace Agile ways of working, I inevitably hear the following sharp rejoinder from staff and management alike: “We don’t want more meetings!” Usually, as a result of introducing Scrum events or Core Hours to teams. It’s often a telltale sign that I have much work to do. … Continue reading No More Meetings?
One of my most memorable accomplishments as a teenager was getting my driver’s license. It took me a couple of tries. When I finally passed, I felt overjoyed. I let out a sigh of relief as the dark clouds of doubt and failure parted. For me, driving a car was one of those rites of … Continue reading Being Agile is Like Driving a Car
“We did not communicate well enough to get those people, as I say, to let go of that rock and swim across the river of change with us.”Roger Smith, General Motors CEO, 1987 I just renewed my Project Management Professional (PMP) credential for another three years. I’ve been a PMP since 2006. Long before I … Continue reading The New Frozen Middle
“There is no truth. There is only perception.” In the mid-1800’s when French novelist Gustave Flaubert coined this phrase, there was no digital social media. Radio, television and the telephone hadn’t been invented yet. People around the world relied on word-of-mouth and print media reports for the state of current events. Any reports would’ve been … Continue reading More Than Size Matters
“They are also self-managing, meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how.”The 2020 Scrum Guide. A team I was coaching in the use of Scrum asked me “What is the path to self-managing?”. What does it mean and what does it look like? The 2020 version of the Scrum Guide changed self-organizing teams … Continue reading Path to Self-Managing?
As a Canadian of Chinese descent growing up in the 60s and 70’s, one of my boyhood idols was the martial artist, Bruce Lee. I watched all his kung fu movies - Fists of Fury, The Chinese Connection, Enter the Dragon, Return of the Dragon, The Game of Death. I imitated his demeanour, practiced his … Continue reading From Nothing to No Thing
I have expertise but I’m not an expert. I have learned but I’m not learned. I teach but remain a student. Struggling whets the appetite for learning. I have travelled but I have not arrived. I dream but I’m not a dreamer. Striving for perfection means never getting there. Newfound knowledge is never old
To change with change is the changeless state- Bruce Lee. I’ve been spending much of my time in the new year helping a number of existing Scrum teams improve their use of the Scrum Framework. Teams going through the practice motions without fully understanding or appreciating why or what they hope to gain by using … Continue reading Leaderless
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