Upcoming Agile events to look forward to

I've been on a break from blogging since my daughter's birth, but here's a heads up to some events I'm looking forward to and expect to write about.

Agile Practitioners 2014 conference events this week:

1. 28-Jan-2014 - Workshop: Jutta Eckstein, on ‘Agile Software Development in a Large and Distributed Environment’
2. 29-Jan-2014 - the Agile Practitioners 2014 conference day - here's my post on it
3. 30-Jan-2014 - in the spirit of "Code Retreat" and "Coach Retreat", the first ever "Retrospective Retreat"!

Yet, it doesn't stop there! The week after, on February 3rd, Dave Snowden will be giving a talk "Complexity in human systems" at SAP labs.

Stay tuned :)

Habit 1 - Be Proactive

This is a part of my Introduction to Covey's 7 Habits series.

The first habit, the imperative "be proactive" is derived from the fact that Humans can think about thoughts. This self awareness, abstract level of reflection, empowers us so we may overcome some very strong powers that guide us by default.

Determinism

These forces are often considered to determine our life.

• Genetic determinism - grandma did it to me! no wonder I have such temper
• Psychic determinism - mommy did it to me! no wonder I have stage fright
• Environmental determinism - my boss / my spouse / the law / traffic...

Experiments with animals showed you can create stimulus-response relationships. This notion is often thought of as a system to influence human behavior with "carrots and sticks" (or MBOs).

We have a way out

Having self awareness, imagination, conscience and will - we can choose. We can always choose.

Viktor Frankl called that freedom to choose "response-ability". You could have Liberty, but without mastering Responsibility, the ability to choose your response - you do not have true Freedom.

Why is it called "Be Proactive?"

Proactive as opposed to Reactive. Being reactive means you let others drive your emotions and behaviors. Being proactive, you are driven by your own values. You take initiative and don't wait for someone to take care of you.

Reactive people often use a victimized language: "have to," "he makes me", "they won't", "it's just the way I am", "that's the way things are"

Circle of Concern  & Circle of Influence

Covey points out that each of us has a part of the world we are concerned about, and a part we can influence. Proactive people focus their energy in their circle of influence, and by doing that they increase their influence over time. Wasting energy on the part we're concerned about but can't influence is likely to be less effective and mostly filled with complaint, blame and negative energy, which in turn shrink the circle of influence with time.

The problems we encounter are either under our direct control (our own behavior), our indirect control (other people's behavior) or we might have no control over them (such as the past).
The solution to the problems over which we have any control lies with practicing the habits, while wholeheartedly accepting those outside our circle of influence. We might not be able to choose the reality, but we are able to choose our response and reaction to it.

Homework

Covey suggests some  things you can do to practice the first habit. Focus on being - when you complain about another you aren't influencing anything for the better. The only thing you control is your own behavior.

• Try applying the principles of being proactive (while trying to avoid being reactive) for 30 days and observe new outcomes
• Take a full day to listen to the language you and people around you use - tune to hear reactive phrases such as "if only", "I can't", "I have to", "they should"...
• Use your imagination to visualize a situation you typically behave in a reactive way, and imagine ways you could response proactively. Replay this new scenario to yourself and commit to choose this behavior in the next opportunity
• Choose a problem that frustrates you, and decide if it is in you direct control, indirect control or no control, and find the first step you can take in your circle of influence - and take it

Related reading

All I posted related to responsibility.

Introduction to Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Last month I posted Sharpen the Saw, which points at links between Stephan Covey's book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and other ideas.


One comment triggered me to consider writing a series of more basic posts about each habit. I'll use this post as a cover post that links to the next ones as they come, so this one will be updated as I make progress.

Private Victory

The first 3 habits are in the realm of "private victory", growing from a dependent state, to an independent state. Become able to choose your actions, clarify your values and goals and plan and execute effectively towards those goals.

1. Be Proactive

How to beat the perceived determinism of our lives by choosing our responses.
See: Habit 1 - Be Proactive

2. Begin with the End in Mind

How to decide what you want, and lead yourself into the direction you choose.
See: Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind

3. Put First Things First

<coming soon>

Public Victory

The next 3 habits deal with going beyond what you can achieve independently. You can reach further by mastering interdependence, the ability to work with others towards shared goals.

4. Think Win-Win

<coming soon>

5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

How to really listen, to content and emotion, to build deeper relationships and communicate your own ideas more effectively.
See: Habit 5 - Seek first to Understand, then to Be Understood

6. Synergize

<coming soon>

Continuous Improvement

7. Sharpen the Saw

<coming soon>

Agile Manifesto for Kids

This Sunday my daughter was born. While I'm busy with getting used to pink (after two boys) and until I blog again, I leave you with this. Feel free to download, print, connect the dots and try to identify who's who :)

If you didn't get it, you probably could spend more time here.

Christopher Avery's Leadership Gift Program

In some of my posts I referred to Avery's Responsibility Process. It's time to say some more, and let you know of a way to master it, if you're interested.

Background

I first encountered the model late 2009, when Software AG brought a consultant to help us learn and adopt lean and agile principles and methods. The funny thing, this guy talked about culture, mindset, emotions and psychology much more than process or technical skills or tools.
I had the opportunity to be part of a group that played a key role in learning and spreading the knowledge  in our R&D, across a good number of locations.

It would be ambitious to try to explain the Responsibility Process in a short blog post, when I usually take a three hour, experience rich, in-person workshop to give people a taste of it. What I can say, is it works for me. I use it on myself to choose my options in the face of problems, to keep myself engaged and caring about what I do and the people I work with. The people I work with know it, and it gives us a way to accept displays of blame, justifications, shame or obligation without taking it personally, helping each other out of those mindsets towards learning and resourceful action.

Christopher Avery teaches this model and more in his Leadership Gift Program, and the point of this post is to tell you about this opportunity. To be fair - I did not participate in it. First, because the timezone difference is demanding. But mostly because I was already underway on my own path: through the coaching I got at work, learning through audio recordings, teaching it over and over again, reading books and blogs, and attending Avery's workshop in Israel.

Opportunity

If you don't plan on taking such a path, here's another opportunity.

The Leadership Gift Program 2014 is a live, online, 17-week semester from November 2013 through February 2014 on which you learn this stuff and more with Christopher Avery. It's also a community of practitioners, supporting each other in mastering this stuff.

There's more to it. If you are interested, but not yet sure, here's what you can do next (until October 22nd):

• Go to www.ChristopherAvery.com/vip
• Enter your name, email and this VIP Code: LeanGuyVIP
• Take the time to join a free, content rich webinar, on either October 22 or 24 to hear more about it

What's with the VIP code?

If you use this code to register to the webinar and later choose to enroll to the program, you'll get a 100 USD rebate. There are different pricing options, the most common would typically cost 800 USD, so for you (being a reader of this blog) it will cost 700 USD.

Here are all my posts that have anything to do with Responsibility.

And here is the poster I translated to Hebrew:

Sharpen the Saw

Last week I had the opportunity to meet face to face with a group of colleagues from around the world, after a period of working together as a virtual team. I had the privilege to share some ideas I learned in the past few years. During my preparation I noticed some interesting overlaps and touch-points between these ideas. Here is a sketch these relationships between ideas, using Stephen Covey's 7 Habits wheel diagram as an underlying structure, while other books, concepts and disciplines as elaborate and enrich certain parts of it.

Covey's 7 Habits, and Friends

Here is the textual version:

1. Be Proactive

The first habit is all about learning to choose your reactions overcoming automatic patterns of behaviors based on emotional triggers. I think Christopher Avery did a great job modeling our typical emotional transitions when we deal with problems with his "Responsibility Process". 

2. Begin with the End in Mind

Covey's most morbid habit urges us to explicitly craft our own personal mission statement. We have one life, make it count. Well, having one life is sometimes used to justify some questionable actions (YOLO), but lets say the message is - make your life matter, don't waste it watching TV. Memento Mori rather than Carpe Diem.

Having read "Drive" by Dan Pink, it seems there's a virtuous cycle at play - tuning to a purpose in what you do, kindles your intrinsic motivation, making you more engaged and therefore likely to succeed.

3. Put First Things First

Covey's quadrants, categorizing tasks on dimensions of importance and urgency have been a corner-stone to any time management system. Notable in that area:

• Getting Things Done / David Allen
• Personal Kanban / Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry
• The Pomodoro Technique  (ok, not so much about quadrants, but about time management...)

4. Think Win-Win + 5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Both relate to NonViolent Communication: seeking first to understand is all about emphatic listening, while thinking win-win could be thought of as aimed to address the needs of both parties assuming abundance rather than regard realty as a zero-sum-game (in which for me to win you'll just have to lose).

6. Synergize

A Hyper-Performing Team is a whole, being more that the sum-of-its-parts. To boost your team coaching skills, here are quite a few good sources of inspiration:

• Teamwork is an Individual Skill / Christopher Avery
• Collaboration Explained / Jean Tabaka
• The Core Protocols / Jim & Michele McCarthy
• The Human Side of Agile / Gil Broza
• Coaching Agile Teams / Lyssa Adkins

7. Sharpen the Saw 

This diagram and blog post is a result and a part of an ongoing, continuous search for new ideas and deeper understanding.




I suppose this may be over simplistic, and based only on some of the things I personally encountered so far. How would you improve it? What are you missing here?

Update: I started A post series introducing Covey's 7 Habits.
  

Image Formats: a Quick Guide for the Perplexed

From time to time I find myself explaining the differences between some of the common image formats, and when you'd better use each. I thought it would be useful to post about it, especially since I'm sure I'm going to learn something new in the process.

Raster vs Vector

Raster and Vector images: zoom in

Most commonly used are Raster image formats, such as bitmap, jpeg, gif and png. Raster means, there are pixels arranged in a grid which makes sense because most if not all display devices are eventually made of grids of pixels. However, Vector formats keep the image represented as geometric shapes, rendering to pixels only when actually displaying. This way, there's no low resolution problems. Think of flash graphics, or PowerPoint, or PDF (when not made of a scanned document) - you can zoom in as much as you want, and the curves remain sharp. These formats are often used for print, by designers, CAD tools, games, etc.

So lets focus on the raster image formats.

Bitmap (.bmp)

Bitmap is as simple as they come - uncompressed. The data for each pixel is stored in a pixel array, according to the defined image color depth (from 1-bit per pixel which is just black and white to 32-bit which supports over 4 billion colors, and even transparency information). Being that simple, almost anything can display it, so that's the up side. File size is another matter - bitmaps can get huge. Ever got a 5MB email just because someone dumped a screenshot in it?
Usually bitmaps don't contain transparency data, and even when they do, most applications don't support displaying it properly - so for most practical means, it's fair to say bitmaps don't support transparency.

Graphic Interchange Format (.gif)

GIFs are limited to 256 colors (or 255 + transparent pixels). The image data is compressed in a loss-less algorithm - meaning the quality of the image isn't damaged due to the compression. If the original image contained more colors, the first conversion to GIF will reduce the quality, of course (this effect is called "posterization").
These attributes make GIF a light weight and widely supported image type that works well for simple images, logos, diagrams, cartoon style drawings, etc - but not for photos or graphics rich with gradients.
Oh, and GIF can be animated, too.

Portable Network Graphics (.png)

GIF was patent protected, and legal disputes triggered the development of PNG as an alternative. And a good thing too - it supports rich color, and a full alpha channel - and typically compress even better than GIFs unless the image is very small. Wait... what's an alpha channel? Well, remember how GIF can have transparent pixels? In PNG, each pixel can have any level of transparency, which is great for combining images. However, PNG doesn't support animation.
Note that while it can support photos, it's compression works best for images with large blocks of solid color, similar to GIF.

JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg)

Designed for photos, this is the default standard file type most digital cameras produce. Photos are assumed to have some unstructured noise in them, and typically low contrast color transitions. These attributes allow using compression which is lossy - when you save an image as a JPEG, some noise may be added to it. The more noise you are willing to take, the stronger compression you can have.
The compression uses the same math that's in MP3 - discrete cosine transform (DCT), which is similar to Fourier transform. In a nutshell, the image is broken to 8x8 pixel squares, and each is represented as a combination of frequencies (or cosines). The amount of noise can be controlled for trade-offs of size versus quality.  
No transparency or animation.

The Cheat Sheet

Format	Extension	Best used for...	Compression	Transparency	Animation
Bitmap	.bmp	Anything if you don't care about size	none	none	none
GIF	.gif	Simple graphics, logo, icon, silly cats, limited colors	lossless	boolean	yes!
PNG	.png	Most graphics	lossless	full	none
JPEG	.jpg	Photos	lossy (noisy)	none	none

Useful Links

To learn more, here's a good start: Image file formats (wikipedia)
Cool free service for image size optimization: kraken.io/web-interface