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April 2 - April 9, 2019
unnecessary reporting that has people filling out forms for the sake of filling out forms, and meaningless meetings that suck up time and don’t deliver any value.
“Emotional Waste.” That type of waste is generated when a company has an asshole in its midst—someone
Don’t be an asshole—and don’t allow, abet, or accept that behavior in others.
we need the lightest-weight process with the greatest impact on work.
they made a very basic mistake. They thought they could plan everything ahead of time.
the very act of planning is so seductive, so alluring, that planning itself becomes more important than the actual plan. And the plan becomes more important than reality. Never forget: the map is not the terrain.
We simply said for this task to be done, it had to meet those goals.
“Definition of Done.” Everyone knows when something is done or not; there are clear standards that any piece of work has to meet.
What will bring the most value to the project? Let’s do those things first.
beginning estimates of work can range from 400 percent beyond the time actually taken to 25 percent of the time taken.
refine the plan throughout the project rather than do it all up front. Plan in just enough detail to deliver the next increment of value, and estimate the remainder of the project in larger chunks.
“Is this what you want? Does this solve at least a piece of your problem? Are we going in the right direction?”
Each number in the series is the sum of the two previous numbers. It’s called the “Fibonacci sequence,”
The numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are far enough apart that we can easily tell the difference.
What using the Fibonacci sequence to calculate task size permits is estimates that don’t have to be 100 percent accurate. Nothing will be exactly a five or an eight or a thirteen, but using those numbers gives us a way to collect opinions on the size of a task where everyone is using roughly the same measuring stick, and in that way a consensus is formed.
People assume that if everyone else is going along with something, their own reservation is silly or misinformed, and they don’t want to look stupid in front of the group.
People assume other people are making sound judgments, even if those judgments contradict their own.
“halo effect.” This is when one characteristic of something influences how people perceive other, unrelated characteristics.
“A Constant Error in Psychological Ratings,”
if someone is good-looking, everyone assumes that they’re also smart and trustworthy.
people who are focused on the “halo” don’t look at actual data—rather, they gravitate toward something that has a positive sheen to it.
If everyone is within two cards of each other (say a five, two eights, and a thirteen), the team just adds them all up and takes the average (in that case 6.6) and moves on to the next item.
If people are more than three cards apart, then the high and the low cards talk about why they think what they do. Then everyone does another round of Planning Poker.
This incredibly simple method is a way to avoid any kind of anchoring behavior, such as the bandwagon or halo effects,
People think in narratives, in stories. That’s how we understand the world.
Who is this task being done for?
what—what we want done in the first place.
Why does this character want this thing?
why. Why does he want that functionality? What purpose will it serve?
Is the story ready? And how will you know when it’s done?
it needs to meet the INVEST criteria: Independent. The story must be actionable and “completable” on its own. It shouldn’t be inherently dependent on another story. Negotiable. Until it’s actually being done, it needs to be able to be rewritten. Allowance for change is built in. Valuable. It actually delivers value to a customer or user or stakeholder. Estimable. You have to be able to size it. Small. The story needs to be small enough to be able to estimate and plan for easily. If it is too big, rewrite it or break it down into smaller stories. Testable. The story must have a test it is
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if stories are really Ready, the team will double the speed of implementation.
what is keeping you from going faster? What is keeping you from accelerating?
Nothing is written in stone. Question everything.
Is there anything we can do differently to speed things up?
2. Can we offload some Backlog items? Is there stuff we can get other teams to do?
3. Can we not do some things? Can we reduce the scope of the project by any amount?
the most important part of Scrum: it changes the culture people work in,
The Map Is Not the Terrain. Don’t fall in love with your plan. It’s almost certainly wrong.
Set Audacious Goals. With Scrum it is not that hard to double production or cut delivery time in half. If you do it in the right way, your revenue and stock price should double as well.
Pursuits do seem to be what make us happy.
if you ask them when they were happiest, they’ll tell you it was in those moments of trial—of pushing their bodies, minds, and spirits to the limit. That’s when they were the happiest, when they experienced true joy. And that’s what they want to experience again.
Ben-Shahar writes: “We are not rewarded for enjoying the journey itself but for the successful completion of a journey. Society rewards results, not processes; arrivals, not journeys.”
our day-to-day life is mostly made up of journeys.
true greatness is deeply rooted in joy. And that to be joyful is to take the first step toward success.
That’s because happiness is crucial to your business and is actually a better forward predictor of revenue than most of the metrics your CFO provides.
Happiness Is Success The research is startlingly clear. Happy people simply do better—at home, at work, in life.
Happiness leads to success in nearly every domain of our lives, including marriage, health, friendship, community involvement, creativity, and, in particular, our jobs, careers, and businesses.
“Study after study shows that happiness precedes important outcomes and indicators of thriving.”
People aren’t happy because they’re successful; they’re successful because they’re happy. Happiness is a predictive measure.
