Drunken PM
by Dave Prior
Drunken Boxing for Project Managers
“The main feature of the drunkard boxing is to hide combative hits in drunkard-like, unsteady movements and actions so as to confuse the opponent. The secret of this style of boxing is maintaining a clear mind while giving a drunken appearance.”
Yeah... just like that… but with network diagrams and burndown charts… and a wee bit less vodka.
Recent Posts
Certified Agile Leadership Training with Olaf
Don Kim - I Think, Therefore I Plan
Agile Coach to Agile Gamer - Peter Saddington
Scrum in School - A Case Study of Grandview Prep's Transformation
Forecasting Tools Based on Team Performance with Troy Magennis
Categories
20 Hour,
211,
4-Hour Body,
4-Hour Chef,
4-Hour Work Week,
Aakash Srinivasan,
Aaron Smith,
Adam Weisbart,
Adrian Howard,
Agile,
agile digitalpm,
Agile 2010,
agile 2015,
Agile Alliance,
Agile Classroom,
Agile Enterprise,
Agile Mindset,
agile reporting,
agile transformation,
Agile Tribes,
agile2015,
AgileClassroom,
AgileCraft,
AgileScout,
AgileThinking,
Ainsley Nies,
Al Goernor,
Al Shalloway,
Alistair Cockburn,
Angela Harms,
Anna Beatrice Scott,
Ansley Nies,
AOW4PM,
apocalypse now,
apple,
art of war,
Bas De Baar,
Bas Vodde,
Beyond Legacy Code,
Big Visible,
BigVIsible,
bimodal,
Blackie,
Bob Sarni,
body language,
book review,
braintrust,
branding,
breaking gantt,
Brent Beer,
Brett Pohlman,
Brian Bozzuto,
brian flatow,
brian rabon,
business agility,
Business Model Canvas,
CAL,
Canvas,
capacity,
carson pierce,
Catherine Louis,
Center for Non-Violent Communication,
Certification,
Certified Agile Leadership,
certified scrum trainer,
Charter,
Chet Hendrickson,
Chris Li,
Chris Spagnuolo,
Christine Neidhardt,
cloud,
cloud worker,
co-working,
Coach's Clinic,
Coaching,
cochlear,
commitment,
conteneo,
Corkulous,
coworking,
Craig Larman,
Crystal,
CSM for PMP,
cst,
DAD,
Dan Brown,
Dan Greening,
dan markovitz,
data,
Dave Prior,
David Anderson,
David Bernstein,
David Bland,
David J Anderson,
Dean Leffingwell,
Dean Stevens,
Declan Whelan,
Denise Jacobs,
Dennis Stevens,
Designing Together Design,
Dhaval Panchal,
diana larsen,
Digital Pm Summit,
Digital Project Management,
digitalpm,
Disciplined Agile Delivery,
Distributed Teams,
Docs to Go,
Don Kim,
dpm,
dpm2013,
drunkenpm,
drunkenpm radio,
eduscrum,
Eight Shapes,
Elizabeth Harrin,
Elizabeth Hendrickson,
Elizabeth McClellan,
EMEA,
emotional intelligence,
Enterprise Scrum,
Essential Scrum,
esther derby,
EVEF,
Evernote,
Every Voice Engaged,
Experience,
Explore It!,
facebook,
field guide,
FIRM REPORT,
First 20 Hours,
Flight Levels,
Flipboard,
FocusedObjective,
forecast,
Forecasting,
Frank Illenberger,
Fred George,
fred kluth,
funny garbage,
Gil Broza,
Github,
Global Economics,
Grandview Prep,
Greg Balestrero,
GTD,
Happy Cog,
Heartline,
Howard Sublett,
hybrid,
I Think Therefore I Plan,
Iain Frasier,
ICAgile,
Idea Wallets,
improvisation,
InfoQ,
InspireMe!,
International Consortium for Agi,
IOS4,
iPad,
iPad 2,
iPad2,
iPhone,
IT&T SIG,
J.B. Rainsberger,
James Tamm,
Jason LIttle,
Jean Tabaka,
Jeff Patton,
Jesse Fewell,
Jessica Kerr,
Jessie Shternshus,
jim benson,
Jim Tamm,
johanna rothman,
John D Cook,
john miller,
Judith Lasater,
Jutta Eckstein,
kamal manglani,
kanban,
kanbanfor1,
kanbanpad,
Kate Sullivan,
Kathy Compton,
Ken Rubin,
Ken Schwaber,
Kenny Rubin,
Keynote,
Kuala Lumpur,
lacey,
Large Scale Scrum,
Larman,
Larry Maccherone,
Larsen,
Lasater,
Leadership Meeting,
LeadingAgile,
lean,
Lean Kanban University,
Lean Systems Engineering,
LeanKit,
Leffingwell,
LESS,
Liftoff,
Linda Rising,
Lithespeed,
Livescribe,
Livescribe Pulse,
LSE,
Luis Garcia,
luke hohmann,
lyssa adkins,
Mac,
MacWorld,
Macworld 2011,
Magennis,
Malaysia,
Malaysia Scrum User Group,
Management,
Managing the Unmanagable,
Manny Gonzalez,
Marc Johnson,
Marshall Rosenberg,
Martin Rosenqvist,
mashup,
matt barcomb,
MDEC,
Merlin,
metrics,
Michael Sahota,
Michele Sliger,
Mickey W. Mantle,
Mike Cohn,
Mike Cottmeyer,
Mike Sutton,
Mike Vizdos,
mitch lacey,
MITPM,
Mode 1,
Mode 2,
modus cooperandi,
Modus Institute,
Nanette Brown,
Natalie Warnert,
Nic Sementa,
NLP,
Non Violent Communication,
Non-violent communication,
Notes Plus,
NVC,
off shore,
Offshore,
Olaf Lewitz,
Open Space,
Oredev,
Øredev,
oredev 2013,
organizational agility,
Organizational Change,
overcommitment,
pag,
Panda Transport,
Panel Picker,
Papershow,
Paul Hammond,
personal agility canvas,
personal branding,
personal kanban,
personal productivity,
personal project management,
personal projectmanagement,
Peter Saddington First15,
Petra Goltz,
Philamade,
pk,
Planning,
PM4Girls,
PMI,
PMI Portugal,
PMP,
podcast,
Product Owner,
Product Ownership,
productivity,
Project,
project management,
project manaqement,
project planning,
Project Potion,
Projects At Work,
projectshrink,
ProjectWizards,
Projet Chartering,
pulse,
rachel howard,
Radical Collaboration,
reach the peak,
Rebecca Wirfs-Brock,
review,
riaan rottier,
Ricardo Vargas,
Robyn Meredith,
Ron Jeffries,
Ron Lichty,
Rosenberg,
SAFE,
Safety,
Sam Barnes,
Sanjiv Augustine,
Scaled Agile Framework,
Schneider and Associates,
School of Rock,
Scott Ambler,
Scrum,
Scrum Alliance,
scrum but,
scrum field guide,
Scrum Gathering,
Scrum in Education,
Scrum in Schools,
scrum in waterfall,
ScrumFest,
Shane Hastie,
Showing Up,
SK Khor,
social media,
SolutionsIQ,
sprint planning,
Steffan Surdek,
stephen denning,
Steve Elliott,
Stewart Copeland,
Story Mapping,
Sun Tzu,
Swarming,
SXSW,
SXSW2012,
Tabaka,
Team Performance,
Teams,
Telecommunications,
Telepresence,
Temenos,
Test Obsessed,
the adstore,
The Ron,
theStrayMuse Louder than Ten,
Thierry Holoweck,
Things,
Thushara,
Tim Ferriss,
Tim Ferriss Experiment,
To Be Agile,
Tobias Mayer,
Tom Kealey,
Tom Mellor,
Tom Perry,
Tom Smallwood,
Tribes,
Tricia Broderick,
troy magennis,
TrustTemenos,
twitter,
Unicat,
User Stories,
value,
VCP,
video conferencing,
Virgin Digital,
Vivek Angiras,
VLC,
vocal technique,
waste,
Weisbart,
What We Say Matters,
Wijewardena,
WIzewerks,
Woody Zuill,
WWDC,
yellowpencil,
Zeldman
Date
Personal Kanban Experiment... Weeks 10-12
Kanban. (expletive) Still only in Kanban. Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the GTD…
Towards the end of my experiment with Kanban-for-1 I was feeling like I had lost my way. I was still carrying too much work to be able to make use of Kanban-for-1, but my attempts at using it had taught me a number of useful things.
-
Whatever I use, it needs to be completely portable.
-
Whatever I use needs to be available to me whether I am online or off.
-
Whatever I use needs to be simple enough that the act of using it does not become a time/productivity suck. The tool can’t be in my way.
-
I really like working with a physical board and would like something as close to that as possible.
-
When I am home, and using the physical board on the wall, the process works quite well for me.
I toyed with the idea of trying to get a piece of plastic that I could use for a physical board and that I could roll up and carry with me. But I’m guessing that the person in seat 21A (who is probably still a bit irked about losing the battle for the armrest) is not going to take kindly to me unrolling my big Kanban board to work on it mid flight.
The Horror, The Horror
I did attempt to use my Kanban journal. This is the book I make notes in each week on how things are going. I carry it with me each time I go on the road, so it seems like a great fit. Exiting Kanban-for -1, I re-created all my post its and created a PK Board in my notebook that was just like the one on my wall. It worked great until I actually placed the post-its in the book. I was right back to the Kanban-for-1 issue.  Drowning in a bunch of stuff I could not really see clearly. Just like with Kanban-for-1, if I had to move a task, first I had to dig through the piles of tasks to figure out where it was.
Disclaimer: I should point out that if you are reading this hoping to get to a point where I realize I’m just carrying way too many tasks… you might want to get a sandwich… it’s gonna be a while.
I decided to take a look at the Personal Kanban apps again. My requirements were the same:
-
Must be available on laptop, iPhone and iPad.
-
Must be as close to my physical board as possible (meaning must allow for swim lanes).
-
Must have some capacity for dealing with recurring tasks.
-
Must be available online and offline with a sync capability or something as easy as capturing notes on a post it or index card.
Basically I’m looking for Things, but Kanban style ( cough cough Cultured Code cough cough).
Since I’ve started writing this blog people have been kind enough to send in a number of recommendations. Trello seems to be very popular. I’ve also received suggestions that I use Evernote for Kanban. I’d love to be able to do that, but I’ve not yet found a tool that would allow me to do so in as effortless a manner as I am looking for. Basically, if using the tool is more work than pulling an index card or a post it out of my pocket and capturing the item/updating the item while I am in an elevator, walking down the street, or sitting on a plane, it’s too much work.
Unfortunately, none of the tools I was able to find met all my requirements. However, after looking over the options, I decided o give Leankit a try. My reasons for choosing it were not entirely scientific, but I’m human…
Leankit allowed me to do the following:
-
Set up my swim lanes just like I had them on the wall.
-
Define the work state columns however I wanted.
-
Establish whatever WIP limits I wanted and warn me when I tried to exceed them.
-
It let me color code the cards based on work type.
The last point may seem trivial, but to me, it is very significant and one of the primary reasons that I have so much trouble with personal Kanban applications. The value of my physical board is that I can put everything I had to do up there at once. I can look at it all at once. It is a really big information radiator. For me, it’s a billboard telling me what is going on with the things I feel I need to do. No matter how awesome the software is, or how big my monitor is, there doesn’t seem to be a way to replicate the big thing on the wall + tactile interaction thing.
While my preference for a physical board is clearly established, there is no way that my physical board and my Martin travel guitar are going to fit in the overhead, so I need me some app-age.
"Never get out of the boat... Unless you were goin all the way."
(Capt. Willard)
Leankit
I used Leankit for about a month during this project. As far as Personal Kanban apps go, it is my weapon of choice. I’ve not tested out the paid version, which includes some extra features and more detailed analytics, but I found the free version to be very helpful in tracking my work on the road. My favorite aspect of the application was the customization. I really liked that I could set up my board in Leankit to mirror the one I have at home. In practicing any work habit, I believe the first step should always be the physical practice. If it moves to an electronic tool, then it is important to select a tool that allows you to mirror your physical behavior. Leankit offered me the most freedom there.
It even allowed me to set up multiple backlogs so that I could mirror how Things had worked for me. While I wasn’t able to figure out how to get recurring tasks going, I was able to create a ReUsable backlog so that each night I could move the recurring Daily items back into that backlog if I wanted. I didn’t actually end up doing that, but it somehow eased my mind to know that I could.
It also allows you to set due dates, mark work as blocked and it has an icon system for type of work.
So, Leankit allowed me to replicate my physical board on the web. It also has an iPhone application which took a little time to get the hang of, but which allowed me to update items as long as I could get online. With respect to my requirements:
-
Must be available on laptop, iPhone and iPad (PASS)
-
Must be as close to my physical board as possible (meaning must allow for swim lanes) (PASS)
-
Must have some capacity for dealing with recurring tasks (FAIL)
-
Must be available online and offline with a sync capability or something as easy as capturing notes on a post it or index card (FAIL)
From a mobility standpoint, with the exception of offline sync, the tool works quite well. It allows me to access my work, update it, enter new items, etc. You can even set it up to allow you to access multiple accounts. On my iPhone I have Leankit set up to access my personal account under one email address and another one I use for Scrum Alliance volunteer work.
The fact that Leankit did not meet all my requirements is not significant for me. None of the applications I looked at were able to meet all of them. From a customization, portability and usability standpoint, I am a big fan of Leankit.
 |
|
You can't go out into space with fractions. |
Initially I had planned to keep testing different applications. What I discovered after a few weeks was that while I want to the portability, the loss of big information radiator-ness was crippling. This was something I decided needed further research, but not so much in the way of testing additional apps. What I felt I needed a better handle on was why I wanted the apps and what I was actually doing with them. I do expect to go back and test out some additional apps – I really want to take a look at Trello because a lot of people have mentioned to me that they use it. But, after a few weeks with Leankit I decided to bail on trying new software for a while because it was time to start working with a Personal Kanban coach. Coverage of that will begin in the next blog post.
|
Posted on: July 28, 2013 12:24 AM
|
Permalink |
Comments (1)
|
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain
|
