Introducing Project Rio

Introducing Rio, my latest project and clearly the reason I have been offline or a while now.

He has happily taken over in the last 20 days my entire calendar and finding time for myself has been nothing but luxury.

Thank you for being so patient with me for a while now.

Will Power and free resources for wannabe Project Managers

You never know where inspiration comes from

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I have been doing random stuff to keep myself going and one of it has been watching youtube videos. I recently watched a TED talk by Kelly Mcgonigal and that led to watching more talks by her. This one is my favorite.

It talk about Will power and what we can do to attain it and how smaller interventions actually change the way we think.

I also read up her “how I work” series in LIfehacker  as it seems very natural to see how she does it in real life. I hope this video gives you the will power you need to pick up or face a storm in your own work space or life .

 By the way if you haven’t noticed, there’s a new e-book in town by Geoff Crane where he has gotten 52 project managers from all over the world talk about their initial experience into the work life and profession. Its insightful and a must read for all including seasoned players- there’s something in it for everybody. And am more than honored to be part of his project. 

52 Tips to Break Into Project Management from Geoff Crane

 

Leadership

Pic Courtesy: Pinterest

Guilty as charged

I multitask and can do it well. Really well.

I put hours at work, I blog, I write, meet lovely friends, keep in touch with everybody and barely give anyone the chance to complaint.

The last few months, I have stopped multitasking. Not really deliberately, it just happened. Work was crazy and by the time I was home I didn't feel like doing hundred more things. I wanted time for myself, sometimes doing nothing.

And I felt guilty, especially about not being able to meet friends or writing my blog like I used to do. I wanted to be away from my laptop. I even stopped browsing. I stepped away.

I probably haven been writing but every day I am full of guilt that I haven’t been doing what I should have. I see other bloggers or professionals who are doing well, so inspired, so full of energy and I still don’t feel like writing.

It could be writers block, it could be doing the same thing for so many years now or it can be just wanting some time for myself.

Today, I browsed through some articles and wanted to know if there are more people like me who feel the same. Or am I just losing my fire?  

I read about mothers feeling guilt , about difference in the way men and women approach work  and multitude of other stuff.

Bottom-line, yes we should be responsible in what we do but I just feel sometimes it’s okay to do random stuff out of the daily routine. It’s okay to want some time for yourself to get recharged and then be back or choose not to be. Enough of guilt!

So yes I have been spending some time doing nothing except regular work. And to my all my readers if you have expected articles and seen the same one and no new updates over and over again- I was busy in my balcony looking at the mango tree and sky and birds. I was spending more time with myself than with anything else, definitely not my laptop.  

Have you been through same situations may be in different context?

I am hoping I will be writing very soon, but bear with me if it takes time- blogging is tough.  Meanwhile enjoy your schedule and what you are happy doing and if you are not- take a break minus the guilt.  It will certainly help!

(Pic Courtesy: Soma)

Scrum Team has stabilized- what next?

Most transformations start with the basic idea of either getting teams to start working in Agile or streamlining their existence process.

At a certain point, teams stabilize, velocity improves, quality soars and things look up.

Is the goal to repeat the same cycle day after day or is there more to work through once the team stabilizes? I have always though that the trying to get teams working in Agile is more like a bicycle- if you stop pedaling, it stops.

Here are 5 things to consider as next steps to keep the team going:

• Baseline velocity- Always know your baseline velocity, when you started and ways you can work on it.
• Focus factor- when the team stabilizes, it’s a good idea to know if the team has the right focus. Its velocity/work capacity. For more info read Jeff Sutherlands article here .  
• Failure trends and patterns- The commitment made by the team always doesn't match the outcome. Looking into why stories fail and trying to identify a pattern might lead the team to understand the underlying problem. It could be user stories that require infrastructure, it can be kind of stories that haven’t been worked on, it can be a story requiring a new technology.  Once you have identified the pattern, it becomes quite easy to find a resolution.
• Estimations- If in every sprint more than 20 percent of stories remain not done, along with other factors you might want to have a look at the way estimation is being done by the team. Some teams commit more by underestimating stories in trying to please the management and keeping to the team’s velocity. Of course by the end of the sprint teams fail to deliver. There are more managers and Product Owners who always push the team to commit more, so they have enough work on hand ever sprint fearing lesser work meaning team members might be free most of the time. Bottom-line, under estimating doesn’t help as much as over estimating doesn't.
• Linking and tracking the layers- Stop looking only at team levels and start looking at the bigger picture, look into the your program and portfolio management and how it  is coming down to the team. Look into the quality of the user stories and how everything is affecting the team.

(Pic Courtesy: Google Images)

To learn about how to get into project management read my book Stepping into Project Management (Welcome to the #PMOT World). To connect with experienced Project Manager's from all over the world, get mentored or shadow for a day see the SIPM Community.