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11 Ways Agile Adoptions Fail – You can tell that Jean knows what she’s talking about. These “weaknesses” are difficult to keep out of the Agile process.
Project managing scrum
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I like this article but tend to disagree with the individual contributor attending in place of the scrum master. I’m not sure how one individual contributor would know what the entire team did.
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I like this quote: “it is almost impossible for leaders to over communicate project vision and it is a critical step for effective leadership”
Pay per feature?
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Cote’s take on an old but always controversial debate. Wouldn’t “pay per feature” be a solution to this debate?
Workout wisdom
No, this is not the beginning of a multilevel marketing pitch. In fact, the pitch is an old story with a different twist, and it begins with the old adage that exercise is good for you. Shocker!? Here are a couple of facts that the local health club rarely mentions.
It’s now and has been a proven fact that exercise will make you smarter. Simple blood flow and increased nerve growth in the brain improve cognition and decrease the amount of degeneration of brain cells. In other words, exercising isn’t about being vain; it’s about being smart.
An additional item rarely mentioned is that exercise helps with sleep. When someone sleeps more sound, they need fewer hours of sleep, which could result in doing something much more productive like being awake. In addition, exercise helps wear out the body physically, which allows one to fall asleep faster and decrease insomnia.
The combination of these two improvements could very well provide a business justification for 45-60 minutes at the gym. An alternative take on this is that regular exercise will prolong a person’s ability to think and focus as they age, which is a bonus that needs little salesmanship.
Food: A necessary evil?
As any personal trainer or dietitian will attest, the best way to increase general fitness for most people is to cut back on the food, but can cutting back on the calories increase your lifespan and healthy years besides just losing a few pounds? While most associate healthy eating with a lack of obesity diseases, there is a substantial amount of research that says a lack of eating actually decreases the aging process.
One article goes so far as to say that every unnecessary calorie avoided increases your lifespan by 30 seconds. While this statistic might be a little hard to believe, there is hard evidence that reducing calories will slow the metabolism. Unfortunately, eating a lot and exercising it off doesn’t seem to result in the same life extending aspects, even though exercising has its own benefits. Interestingly enough, both of these theories seem to hold true to the health adage that fitness is 80% diet and 20% exercise.
Product Management & Scrum
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A blog on product management… Looks like Roger and Brandon have a new addition in this space.
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The daily standup in mockumentary style…
Blogs – dying or in transition?
It seems that many bloggers are doing fewer posts these days, and I’m not the only one to notice the situation, which many would be quick to tag as a fad. The Austin American Statesman recently had a front page article about how the number of new blogs is slowing and the number of dead blogs is increasing. In the article, Gallaga suggests that easily unloadable photos, video, and audio are where future bloggers will spend most of their time. It’s hard to argue with this notion as 
Flickr integration has been a part of my blog since inception, and the popularity of YouTube is undeniable.
But, the question remains as to whether plain old blog posts will go the way of the dinosaur. There’s no doubt that I’ve had fewer posts over the course of the past 3 or so years, including a one year hiatus where I only posted 1 or 2 times. From my point of view, the blogging world appears to be in a consolidation mode with bloggers grouping together to keep readers coming or with a few bloggers who have figured out ways to make money. For many other casual bloggers, the motivation to keep going just isn’t there.
The other slant on this story is whether the readers of blogs have become information inundated, causing a reversal of the chicken and egg. For instance, the motivation to write for many is knowing the content is being read, and as readers have become bored with weak content or too much content, they have slacked off on subscribing entirely. While a decent percentage of my techie friends actively maintain a blog and/or read blogs, 90% of my non-techie acquaintances have never blogged and claim that reading blogs takes too much time.
Blogging may not be going away any time soon, but as a Darwinistic consolidation increases, those who are left will most likely be the ones with the best content, which should lead to a resurgence in subscriptions. As for myself, I cannot yet image a situation where audio and video completely capture the market for freeform expression; thus, I predict a long life for blogs or some similar format.
Say what you mean
As someone who is quite particular about the words I write, I constantly make the assumption that anything written can and often will be published to more than the present/intended audience. For example, I try to punctuate and spell correctly when typing in IM, even though I use my fair share of chat abbreviations for speed. Others choose to strive for speed in chat and email, often leaving all words lower case and misspelling about half of the other words. So, what does all this babbling about “writing” have to do with anything other than personal preferences? Almost nothing, it’s all about style and old habits in many cases, and it really doesn’t matter. What is important is the content, and specifically, how well the message is delivered.
In a recent email exchange with Cote, I congratulated him on his usage of “has had” in a sentence. My simple amusement of this seemingly insignificant detail was derived from an encounter I once had with an English literature teacher in college, where I used this combination. After a lighthearted demonstration to her showing where several famous authors wrote this in their books, she caved, and I became one of her favorite students. After the story, Cote remarked that things get a lot easier once you start writing to say what you mean. (Put that one in the old memory banks, and use it often.) Granted, it’s unlikely any of us would tolerate complete gibberish, but I would take this a step further and pass a little caution onto those who admonish cliches and other society-driven terms. Unless the line clutters the meaning, why not throw it in?! Because, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, since he who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword.
Diversification Simplification
After reading 100’s of articles and discussing with various brokers and investment bankers, I’m convinced that the perfect mix for an investment portfolio will be a never ending debate. After this many years of stocks, bonds, real estate, etc., one would think a universal equation would have been derived that would take into account one’s asset amount, age, risk tolerance and investment timeframe. In the absence of such an equation, I’ve decided to publish yet another proposed “magic formula” to simplify the thought process of diversified investing. While none of the individual rules are original, they do represent a mix of various opinions and suggestions on the topic.
Rule 1: Percentage invested in stocks: 100 minus current age.
Rule 2: Percentage invested in fixed income: everything else not invested in stocks.
Rule 3: Use future investments to keep the first two rules in check and avoid transferring money to and from investments as much as possible.
Rule 4: Point at which readjustment should be made: when the first two rules are off by 5% or greater.
Some FAQs for the equation:
- An example for a 35 year old: 100-35=65% invested in stocks. 35% would be in bonds and/or other fixed income investments.
- The equation does not account for investments one might have in their primary residence. A future post will discuss this matter.
- The stock mix could (and most likely should) include mutual funds and individual stocks in a variety of sectors.
- An additional method for keeping the first two rules in check is to use money from the fixed income and/or dividends to fund the lagging area.
Not just a standup
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I’ve written about stand ups in the past, but this is an all-inclusive article. If your stand ups seem stale, your team is mostly likely doing something wrong. Read the article for more details.
Continual Improvement 
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