Steven Savage's Blog, page 75

Steve’s Agile Life: Work In Progress

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

Here’s the latest on my “Agile Life” experiment (where I use the Agile techniques in  Scrum).  Let’s talk Work In Progress or WIP, something my mentor wanted me to learn more about, and something that inspired my “Agile Life” experiment.

WIP is Work In Progress, a measure of how much is being worked on but is not done. It’s core to the Agile technique of Kanban and the measurement has been incorporated into other practices. W...

Steve’s Update 5/14/2017

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

And it’s time for another  Scrum style standup!  What am I up to?

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 #1: Back from the editor, looks good, she ki...

Steve’s Agile Life: Writing Time

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

As I write about my “Agile Life” experiment (where I use the Agile techniques in  Scrum) I hope to get others to think about time management.  Looks like my friend Serdar over at Genji press got himself a thinking about time management.

He gets into his own blogging, how he has to carve out time, and how his cadence for projects differs based on the kind of said projects.  It’s a great insight into what he as a blogger does –...

Steve’s Agile Life: Done

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

If you’re new to my whole “Agile Life” thing, this is me using Agile (specifically Scrum) to make my life more productive and less stressful.  Let’s talk about a big barrier to success – “Done.”

The latest lesson I want to share is the challenge of figuring out what “Done” is. Yes, trust me, people ask this.

When are you “done” with a task? With a story? With a book? “Done” is important to organizing since that’s when somehti...

Steve’s Agile Life: Size Affects Pursuit Of Value

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

Let’s talk Sprints and organization. If you’re new to my whole “Agile Life” thing, this is me using Agile (specifically Scrum) to make my life more productive and less stressful. Sprints are periods in Scrum used to choose – and do – work. It’s not linear planning, more “I can get X done in Y period.”

So I’m doing Scrum for my life, and my sprint is a month, not the traditional two weeks. I do this because my life has a month...

Steve’s Update 5/7/2017

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

And it’s time for another  Scrum style standup!  OK it’s weekly, and I prefer them daily but that’s a bit much.

First a note – I had a nasty allergy attack around Thursday which held a few things up.  I’m overall on time/ahead of my plans but it was annoying

So what have I done the last week? Way With Worlds Minibook #1: Editor had a bit of a delay, so I expect to get things in a few days. Way With Wo...

Steve’s Agile Life

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

You’re going to want to read this; yes it’s on time management, and yes it’s worth it.  I’m going to talk about management but in a non-boring way.

Remember how I moved to Agile techniques and started those weekly reports?  Here’s what happened.

In March I felt my time management could be better; I felt overworked, fell into multitasking, and knew I could do more.  Sound familiar?

I had organized myself by a mix of Getting Th...

Steve’s Update 4/30/2017

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

Let’s get to my weekly  Scrum style standups – and this is a pretty big milestone!

So for a month I’ve been using a lot more Scrum/Agile techniques, and that includes these weekly reports.  Now I can assess how it went!

The answer?  Pretty damn good.

More done, less stress, better sense of what I’m doing, more adaptability.  There’s a lot of blog posts about to come on this (which is also good as my bl...

Civic Diary 4/25/2017

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

 

Man I am behind on these.  So let’s get to what’s up:

Local Political Group Social Media: Still at it.  It’s gotten kind of dull actually, but what I do helps drive things to the Facebook and Twitter pages – which will be useful as elections roll around.  I imagine there’s a lot more to learn.

Local Informal Group: This has proven to be pretty awesome.  It’s a small group (that’s kind of affiliated with a larger one).  This...

Steve’s Update 4/23/2017

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

Let’s get to my weekly “standups”  Scrum style continue!  What have I done and what am I going to do?

(OK, yes traditional Scrum is daily, but give me a break).

So what have I done the last week? Way With Worlds Minibook #1: My editor should be on it.  Waiting for updates as we speak. Way With Worlds Minibook #5: I completed my monthly goals over a week ahead of time.  I might write more. Way With Wor...