The Science Behind Scrum

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Scrum is a flavor of agile software development. In agile the development teams are cross functional and are self-managing. The development cycles, called sprints, are short, 4 weeks or less. By the end of a sprint the code must be functional, tested and working. Scrum functions on something called empirical process control. Traditional software development (command and control) uses defined process control, which is based on the theory of how something should work. This is at the heart of why so many traditional software projects either fail or generate bad code. A defined process control is meant to work on projects that are not very complex, tasks that do not need to be exact, like making hat pins. Empirical process control is used in serious engineering when tolerances need to be exact.
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Do You Have Vendors or Partners?

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How do you treat your vendors? Are they partners that are interested and engaged in your success or just a resource you use as needed? Many companies are too focused on having the upper hand and squeezing every last dollar out of vendor relationships. Both customers and vendors are guilty of this. When a relationship is focused on money and status, the rules change. If vendors gave their best price on the first quote and companies didn’t try to squeeze them, they could get money out of the way and focus on results.
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I Heart Zappos!

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I just spent 4 hours watching a Zappos All Hands meeting. They started streaming these meetings last quarter and there were over 1500 total views with a steady participation of 165 people. What does it say about a company that 1500 non employees would tune in to watch a business meeting? I’ve worked in the Fortune 100, the military, state and federal government as well as educational institutions and small businesses. This was without question the best all hands meeting I’ve seen. No surprise really, but still impressive as hell.
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Parkinson's Law and ROWE in Government

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I was recently found Parkinson’s Law, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for it’s completion.” So I got on Amazon and bought a used copy of the book since it’s out of print. It was written in 1957 and is largely about the problems with government administration. Nothing much has changed since then. Parkinson talks about how bloated the British Admiralty became between 1914 and 1928. Ships in service decreased by 67.74%, men in the service decreased by 31.5% and dockyard officials increased by 40.28% while Admiralty officials rose by 78.45%. He says there are two reasons for this. “An official want to increase subordinates not rivals” and “Officials make work for each other.”
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The Myth of Multitasking

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Multitasking or divided attention is for computers not people. There is a mountain of evidence that says human beings can only do one thing at a time and do it well. I’m on the hunt for a job and just about every job description I read requires the skill multitasking. I’ve discovered that it’s possible for us to check email while attending a staff meeting, but you’ll write crappy emails and miss much of what’s said in the meeting and good luck coming up with intelligent sounding answers if called upon. My life lessons are backed up by psychology and neuroscience.
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Delighted by Zazzle

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I’m not impressed with the care and feeding of customers very often. Usually the opposite is true. On Sunday I ordered a custom screen printed T-shirt, from Zazzle, as a present for my girlfriend. The website said it would take 3-5 days to make and I ordered 2 day shipping. I received a shipping notice on Tuesday night and they upgraded the shipping to overnight. I had the shirt Wednesday morning! A very nice job of under promise and over deliver.
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