how_can_we_use_scrum_and_agile_principles_to_increase_personal_effectiveness
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revisionNext revision | Previous revision | ||
how_can_we_use_scrum_and_agile_principles_to_increase_personal_effectiveness [2017/08/29 11:10] – hpsamios | how_can_we_use_scrum_and_agile_principles_to_increase_personal_effectiveness [2020/06/10 12:52] (current) – ↷ Links adapted because of a move operation hans | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
====== How Can We Use Scrum and Agile Principles to Increase Personal Effectiveness? | ====== How Can We Use Scrum and Agile Principles to Increase Personal Effectiveness? | ||
- | |||
- | ====== Premise ====== | ||
Most of us, when asked, would like to be more effective. Most of us would say we are overloaded, too busy and so feel less than effective. We seem to have too much to do and no easy way of digging ourselves out of the hole. | Most of us, when asked, would like to be more effective. Most of us would say we are overloaded, too busy and so feel less than effective. We seem to have too much to do and no easy way of digging ourselves out of the hole. | ||
Line 7: | Line 5: | ||
I have found that you can apply Scrum principles to your personal life to become more effective. The result for me is that I know what I am doing and why, I can respond at a good pace to anything coming in and I have a sustainable workload. Most importantly I feel that I am effective (hopefully my customers have the same view:-)) contributing more to their organization than I would otherwise. I've spoken to many people about this issue and the approach I've taken, especially about the email problem, but the reality is that it took a bunch of experiments to determine something that worked for me, and so it took me a long time to get there. | I have found that you can apply Scrum principles to your personal life to become more effective. The result for me is that I know what I am doing and why, I can respond at a good pace to anything coming in and I have a sustainable workload. Most importantly I feel that I am effective (hopefully my customers have the same view:-)) contributing more to their organization than I would otherwise. I've spoken to many people about this issue and the approach I've taken, especially about the email problem, but the reality is that it took a bunch of experiments to determine something that worked for me, and so it took me a long time to get there. | ||
- | ====== How Did You Get Control of Your Email? ====== | + | ====== |
+ | |||
+ | The good news is that you can probably get there faster. The best summary of how you can become more effective that I have read is in the mini-book [[http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | The book turns out to be a bit of a sales pitch for a tool he is developing but I don't think that matters. The reality is that I have used the ideas here – the personal backlog prioritization to understand what to do, "mind maps" to brainstorm ideas, visualizing my workflow especially with regard to email so that I get it under control, using the Pomodoro Technique to help focus when I need focus time, personal retrospectives to look back on what I've been doing and so on. Your understanding of Scrum, agile and lean will make the ideas behind this seem self–evident, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It does require that you step back a bit from the day-to-day hassles of work, but the benefits will outweigh any downside. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== In Particular, | ||
Many people ask specific questions on the approach I take. It comes up when I mention that I only have 5 items in my inbox. Or perhaps it comes up as people talk about using personal Kanban board. Irrespective, | Many people ask specific questions on the approach I take. It comes up when I mention that I only have 5 items in my inbox. Or perhaps it comes up as people talk about using personal Kanban board. Irrespective, | ||
Line 18: | Line 24: | ||
I started fairly simply to address both of these. For | I started fairly simply to address both of these. For | ||
- | - I simply said “review email for a couple of iterations when I come in”, “make backlog items out of ‘large’ things as part of a daily planning activity” (in other words first couple of iterations | + | - I simply said “review email for a couple of iterations when I come in”, “make backlog items out of ‘large’ things as part of a daily planning activity” (in other words first couple of iterations |
- Since I was at the 600 figure I had to determine how to get it down to 300 and then maintain at 300. Once I did this, target was 150, 75, etc. Basically “maintenance” worked by being disciplined about the primary “rule of the game” – you cannot go home until you hit the target. This forced me to work the issue. And through this I found that by working through the queue I noticed that there were a number of common things that I could do to remove them from the queue – heuristics that worked for me. For example: | - Since I was at the 600 figure I had to determine how to get it down to 300 and then maintain at 300. Once I did this, target was 150, 75, etc. Basically “maintenance” worked by being disciplined about the primary “rule of the game” – you cannot go home until you hit the target. This forced me to work the issue. And through this I found that by working through the queue I noticed that there were a number of common things that I could do to remove them from the queue – heuristics that worked for me. For example: | ||
- A number of these were only in the queue because I needed to come back to them at some future date. So I got these out of the inbox by dragging them into tasks (using Outlook) and setting a date when I look at it again. This meant my daily planning now also included a quick glance at the task list for the day. | - A number of these were only in the queue because I needed to come back to them at some future date. So I got these out of the inbox by dragging them into tasks (using Outlook) and setting a date when I look at it again. This meant my daily planning now also included a quick glance at the task list for the day. | ||
Line 26: | Line 32: | ||
In the end it took me about 6 months and I was below 50 on a regular basis. Getting to 10 was easy from there. | In the end it took me about 6 months and I was below 50 on a regular basis. Getting to 10 was easy from there. | ||
- | ====== What Approach Would You Suggest I Take? ====== | ||
- | |||
- | The good news is that you can probably get there faster. The best summary of how you can become more effective that I have read is in the mini-book [[http:// | ||
- | |||
- | The book turns out to be a bit of a sales pitch for a tool he is developing but I don't think that matters. The reality is that I have used the ideas here – the personal backlog prioritization to understand what to do, "mind maps" to brainstorm ideas, visualizing my workflow especially with regard to email so that I get it under control, using the Pomodoro Technique to help focus when I need focus time, personal retrospectives to look back on what I've been doing and so on. Your understanding of Scrum, agile and lean will make the ideas behind this seem self–evident, | ||
- | |||
- | It does require that you step back a bit from the day-to-day hassles of work, but I the benefits will outweigh any downside. | ||
====== Want to Know More? ====== | ====== Want to Know More? ====== | ||
- | Write-up on the basics http:// | + | * [[it_s_not_just_the_meeting|It' |
+ | * Write-up on the basics http:// | ||
{{tag> | {{tag> | ||
- | |||
- | ~~LINKBACK~~ | ||
- | ~~DISCUSSION~~ |
/home/hpsamios/hanssamios.com/dokuwiki/data/attic/how_can_we_use_scrum_and_agile_principles_to_increase_personal_effectiveness.1504030257.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/06/02 14:21 (external edit)