Walking around London with my family at the Fall ’07 Scrum Gathering.
Author Archives: Ken Judy
Our Team Room
Things we did right:
- laptops
- table with two tier top so laptops can sit under the surface
- dual monitor setups
- build bunny
- video projector at center of table
- room for product owner and scrum master at ends
- big whiteboards
- big corkboard
- wall space for bulletin board sized post its
- team picked colors
- space invaders
- poster board sign for ript
- webcam
- purell, handwipes, tissues, and hand lotion
Things we could have done better:
- private space in the corners
- better way to leave phone messages for team
- more webcams/better video conferencing
- kept killing plants
- needed a cleaning person
- better HVAC
Small, Extraordinary Acts
I posted how Anpanman by Takashi (嵩) Yanase (柳瀬) is my role model. Turns out John Maeda has similar sentiments.
What a noble aspiration to act under the belief, “That if you had more you could always get by with less.” One I find very hard to live up to.
In the workplace, I hate to assume responsibility for decisions I did not make. I’m not talking about anything illegal. I’m talking about the daily harms people inflict on others — particularly those over whom they hold power.
There is an industry around how to confront such situations but let’s admit there are people and events we cannot change.
Having no participation or influence over the decision, I want to stay out of it.
But as a human being of good will I have to acknowledge harm and live with my action or inaction in the face of it.
So what can you do when you have no means within your role or recourse to outside authority?
Consider the person and respond as an individual. Give of your personal time and resources.
I aspire to this and very often fall short. But I am challenged and inspired by an absurd and beautiful Japanese children’s character.
I am also inspired by the actions of others including my wife, Kathie, my former employer, Peter, and my friend and co-worker, Luke. Small, extraordinary acts of good will by good people.
Integration and Its Opposites
NBC Universal has completed its acquisition of Oxygen Media, my employer for the last eight years.
in·te·gra·tion: “incorporation as equals into society or an organization of individuals of different groups” – Websters Dictionary
During the past month, we participated in an integration process. A good faith effort by NBCU staff to assess where value lies in Oxygen’s practices and people.
Our team is composed of talented individuals. Marketable individuals may integrate or “dis-integrate” for other opportunities.
What is potentially more enduring yet difficult to discern are the values, practices, esprit and reputation that allow this team to attract and develop new talent even as individuals move on.
However, there is a relentless necessity to “incorporating as equals into an organization of individuals of different groups.” It focuses on individuals and organizations not groups. Citizens and cities – not neighborhoods.
In this process, from both the acquirer and the acquired, the team has suffered. We haven’t been rewarded or treated as one but as individuals in service of organizations. To bastardize Benjamin Franklin, as we hang separately we clearly do not hang together.
This fact, in and of itself, is a great loss.
And so as different constituencies gather at NBCU, we await change. Whatever that change is, for me it will involve building something new.
Let go, go on
Jean-Paul S. Boodhoo has a great post on creativity:
Here is the great thing about top tier developers. They don’t care about dropping all of their secrets, techniques and practices in front of you because these things are all a result of one thing, Creativity… (more)
Some close off for fear their gifts will be stolen. Others engage — confident their best ideas and greatest contributions lie ahead.