PLAN FOR IMPROVISATION

Occasionally somebody from outside of my project stumbles upon notes I have written from a retrospective or other meeting. They generally hone in on comments like, "Dave needs more tattoos." or "We liked the Mexican music theme in the last meeting." While seemingly unprofessional, these comments signify a happy and productive team. They are meant to be somewhat hokey and playful. As a project manager I can use them as a gauge to know how gelled the team is and where to focus my attention during the next iteration. Another advantage of them is that they pull people out of the "worker bee" mind and into a more useful and productive state of mind. If there are none of these types of comments for a few iterations, the team is either struggling or taking themselves too seriously. Either situation requires some attention. I always had a hard time articulating this concept until I was reading the January 2009, "The Year in Science" edition of DISC...

I found this interesting article in the Agile Journal about Scrum. A few quotes stood out to me: "When you consider that Scrum challenges teams to always be growing and improving, it makes sense that it has emerged as the most popular agile management method." "Because the Scrum framework is so lightweight, it requires that none of its constituent parts be thrown out or ignored." Finally... "Today, Scrum stands as the most popular agile management method. Its emphasis on communication and collaboration improves teams' performances and yields products that customers really want. Through the support of the Scrum Alliance, the integrity of Scrum's principles and processes is protected from the diluting forces of organizations that would prefer a pick-and-mix solution. With its balance of supportive structure and flexible freedom, Scrum appeals to managers and developers alike. After all, good work is a result that no one can argue with." This article...

When I joined Redpoint I noticed a disproportionate number of musicians in the firm. So much in fact that I frequently heard people ask, "When will we see the Redpoint band play?" Today while reading the book Rise Up Singing in preparation to play some holiday tunes with the family, I ran across a quote from Pete Seeger: "Musicians can teach the politicians; it's fun to swap the lead. Musicians can teach the planners – economists, engineers, lawyers: Plan for improvisation." From my experience in the software industry, this quote rings true. Over the years, writing computer software has sought to become formulaic, much like a construction engineering project. This simply isn't appropriate; Software is abstract rather than concrete. In graduate school I was taught that there is no "correct" solution to difficult problems. I have never been on a project that went exactly as planned. I have yet to meet anyone in the industry who has. While l...