Ugly clothing, symbols and values
September 25, 2014
Here in Indonesia most companies and organizations have some kind of uniform or at least very strict dress code. For example where I work, the Salvation Army, we have Salvation Army uniform on Mondays and Tuesdays, a set batik shirt on Wednesdays, “pick your own batik” on Thursdays and training clothes on Fridays.
Here’s a collage for you to feast your eyes on be scared by; showing some of those shirts:
I must say… most of these shirts I’ve found really silly and ugly. The don’t sit right on me. I feel awkward.
Let me show you another uniform:
What kind of circus-uniforms am I looking at?! I would never put that on. I’d feel like a magician from the 60-ies.
Finally let show you a picture:
September 24, 2014 If I don’t write this down, I will forget it before the end of the day. That right there was the reason I started my blog, ca 900 posts ago. A couple of days ago, I was, again, creating a big diagram on a whiteboard. This particular one was pretty high and a lot of data points had to go into it. It turned out to be hard and messy to both update and read. I have done this so many times that I’ve lost count. I never found a great solution. I don’t want to use a small A3 report because I want everyone to see it. And I don’t want to print a big A1 sheet every day because it’s too expensive. And I don’t want to use a projector because this needs to be physical and tangible. And in front of...
September 23, 2014 By Ben Currington, used under Creative Commons Have you ever tried to lift a piano? If you have, I bet you’ve had the same experience as me; you go up to the piano, take a good hold, and… nothing. It’s like it’s bolted to the floor, or something (oddly enough, my exact words the first time I tried to lift a piano). This is impossible. We will never make it. But you get one more guy and then you make another try. Maybe if someone could just slide a mat underneath… And you try again. 1…2…3… and… IT MOVED! Right there! That split second is my favorite feeling in the whole world. Trying really hard and getting the first little sign that your efforts are in the right direction. When IT MOVED! It, of course, doesn’t only apply to pianos or not even...
September 22, 2014 September 16, 2014 My good friend and co-writer Joakim Sundén has taught me a great deal about agile, lean, and a whole bunch of other things too. One thing that he said, early in my journey, that I didn’t fully believe was: It’s always interesting to see the spontaneous discussions that appear around a kanban board (or other visualization)… after the meeting. So Joakim says that just by having a visualization in place discussions arise. For example, after the daily standup around the board, people linger and discuss the state of the board, about improvements or other work-related things. Have you experienced that? I have. Often. Very often, in fact. But not always. In this post, I’ll outline a few things that in my experience make these conversations happen more frequently and some words on how to harvest this nugget of information making. (The reference in the title is, of...
September 12, 2014 David J Andersson, the father of Kanban in the software community, has taught me a lot. One of the best hands-on tricks he taught me was just one sentence: “Ask a simpler question!” The longer version is something like: “If you find that you don’t get the answers you want, try to ask a simpler question.” This is a great tip that can be applied in many situations. In this post, I want to tell you about how I used this approach to help an entire company understand their situation and start moving towards something better (whatever that means, which I’ll also discuss). I’ve been working with a company that is struggling financially—on the verge of collapse. Everyone “knows” this, but no action is taken, and no initiatives are coming. The information has been sent out. The reports have been read. Speeches...
September 4, 2014 How’s that for a little topic to clear out in a blog post? I promise this will be just a short thought… even though the title promise more of a book. Well, after the last couple of weeks at my work I just wanted to write down a thought that I keep coming back to. I’m very proud to be part of the Salvation Army and right now we have a world wide leader (aka The General) that I think talks about a lot of good things. Here’s video with his latests message: I like this message for a number of reasons, but the part that stands out for me is “We know we are not perfect. We want to become better. We start Now!” I like that kind of transparency and humbleness. The keyword in the message is Accountability. I have a bit of a hard time with...
August 22, 2014 Have you noticed that people and organisations that are great have a lot of luck? And the opposite is also true: a poorly managed companies are unluckier. In my experience. Now, I don’t think luck has anything to do with it (no - this is not a post about my Christian faith, please contact me for that :)). Which is good news; because that means that we can control it, do something about it. I’ll share a few stories and then some thoughts in this post. I had the good fortune to do my military service in the Royal Swedish Army Band (1992 version) and playing there had a great influence on my musical life. I also got to meet some amazing musicians and some of them went on to great heights. Nothing to do with Kristian I’m...
August 4, 2014 Have you ever had a conversation and then a couple of hours later you come up with a much better way of stating your matter or a better phrasing? This feeling is shown to great effect in “The Comeback” episode of Seinfeld. I almost always have those kinds of revelations after coaching gigs. Sometimes during the gig which is helpful because I then can change into something better. Sadly sometimes after the gig which just frustrates me since there’s not much to do at that point. The story I’m about to tell you is of such an episode. It’s from my, by far, biggest agile (brrrr…) roll-out task. To me, it all ended in a big meh, but I know that some people there were happier when I left and I supposed that meant something. Below when I write “I” we actually were a complete team. If I...
July 23, 2014 Yesterday I had the good fortune to have a chat with Woody Zuill over Skype. I was a really nice hour that just flew by, where we exchanged stories, ideas and had a few laughs. Let me, as a side note, just say that I love that; just exchanging stories with people. I always learn new stuff and quite often stories from my own experience pop back into my memory. This is the best part of conferences - meeting, interacting with others. That’s what I miss the most, being a little sidestepped here in Indonesia. Praise the Lord for Skype and Twitter… ah well for the Internet too (although I’m not entirely sure He had any hands-on action on either of those inventions). I just thought I summarize some of the things that I took away with me from our conversation.How to Make an Empty Diagram in Excel
...And Then It Moved - The Greatest Feeling in the World!
Why so sad? Can we point to improvements without making people feel bad?
“Fry complaining” by Umberto Salvagnin, under Creative Commons
Turning Visualizations into Actionable Insights
Ask a Simpler Question - Real Data Speaks Louder
Accountability, authority, trust, and all those things
Luck has nothing to do with it
Example 1 - Clarinet players
What I Should Have Done - My Jerk-Store Moment
DISCLAIMER
Some thoughts I got after talking with Woody Zuil
It was never about the estimates,...