May 11, 2023
Back to Build Mode
Back to figuring out the hard problems. Back to banging your head against the wall. Back to having setbacks. Back to things breaking over and over again. Back to betas that blow up. Back to Build Mode.
Articles for category: Initiative
May 10, 2023
Everything is directed by Value
We get frustrated when we undertake activities when we cannot see the value they derive. Inevitably this is the response of our team as well. Everyone wants to be doing things of value. The goal then is to make sure you can draw the line between those that do generate value (focus on those) and those that don’t (eliminate those too) and ensure you are doing the same for your team.
May 8, 2023
Why was I Invited to this Meeting?
It’s a statement we often say to ourselves as we sit in a meeting that we aren’t speaking in and aren’t contributing too. As the meeting progresses, we say it more and more to ourselves, over and over again. It’d be rude to just get up and leave and call it a day (you wouldn’t do that in person, remotely, some might notice). The key is in evaluating next time and politely decline. Meetings aren’t meant to be mandatory, they are a suggested list of who the organizer thinks needs to be there, and sometimes, like all of us, they
May 7, 2023
Why we Never reset our VCR clocks
The running joke was that people who didn’t understand technology didn’t reset their VCR clocks. And yet we did it for our alarm clocks, no worries. It’s not because we didn’t have enough knowledge to read the manual, but rather more likely that users in general determined there was no need for a VCR to have a clock when many had a watch and/or were committed to not needing to know the time. When DVD Players came along, the clocks were gone. What features are you dragging around in your product?
May 5, 2023
Task Overload
Are too many tasks coming your way? Is your sprint board weighted down with work you will never get to? Do you start each sprint going – “not a chance”? Are you not sure where to start next or what to do? Sounds like you’re on the verge of being overloaded. The problem is, no one else knows, because we all hide it so well, because we all have varying levels of overload, and because we all dread that our team, the people we trust, might look at us and say – “what do you mean they can’t handle it?”.