Agile Otter Blog

Messages from the past have a way of reaching into the future and getting your attention. This week everyone is talking "apocalypse." This is because of an ancient mayan calendar which quits tracking time on Dec 21st. The joke (I hope we all know it's a joke) is that it stops because that's when time ends. Of course, my calendars used to run out every year (before Google Calendar). The word "apocalypse," according to my sources, was a theatrical term. It referred to the moment when the curtain was pulled back and all was revealed. When I learned that, the title of the biblical book "Revelations" finally made sense, as did more of the text within. Today I'm facing my own apocalypse. An ancient message (from two years ago) has come back and presented itself to me. I like this team. They're good people, and they understand their business. They write quite a lot of code, and they get along. There is nothing to dislike, and much anyone...

I know it's going to sound like I'm trying to talk my boss and yours out of giving us both raises, and of course I'm not, but I keep hearing people tell me they're worried that they can't work in teams because their system pits them against one another. Usually it's an excuse or reason for not pairing. "If I improve my colleague, he will beat me to the incentives" or "if we do his work first, then there's a chance I'll fall behind."  I'm not a fan of individual work assignments , and I'm not a fan of competitive incentives . Rather than rant about it, I'd like to point you to some other authors and how they feel about the topic: Daniel Pink suggests killing your performance ratings . InfoQ balanced comments pro and con individual rewards. Peter Scholtes says reviews are  ineffective, even harmful  and performance appraisal are incompatible . Esther Derby suggests ways to support team-based work  and  performance ...

One day, a fish came to visit some kangaroos. He saw right away that the kangaroos spent all their time hopping on the dusty ground and browsing among the shrubs. Their habits would never work, and surely lead to their deaths, if they were to come to the ocean reefs even for a single month! "Foolish kangaroos," he called to them, "heed my words and live! This hopping and browsing is pointless madness! You must learn to paddle and snatch live prey from among the rocks! The ocean is no place for hopping air-breathing creatures, so come follow me and learn the better way!" The kangaroos, amazingly well-adapted to their un-ocean-ly environment, dutifully ignored the fish. They looked for common ground for conversation, but somehow the topic always turned to the futility of hopping and the unpleasantness of a dry environment. Sometimes they asked polite questions, and the patient among them tried to explain that their way of life was forever on solid ground whe...

I was telling Esther Derby about a little trick I worked out some time ago at one of my clients. The retrospectives had gone stale, with team members offering the same "we should..." list iteration after iteration.  I suspected that they didn't feel that they really had the authority or permission to change their process for the better. I had a good relationship with the CIO and wandered into his office. I said, "we have some changes we want to make, and they won't really cost any money or affect other departments, and I just wondered if you think it would be okay to do them."  The CIO looked at me incredulously, "Of course. That's a silly question to ask." "Alright, then there is this other change.  It might take a few man days out of each iteration, but it will be helpful for the team.  Would that be okay?"  He sighed, "If it's a few man days per iteration, we can afford that. Go ahead and take that time. You don'...