5 Twitter Retweet Rules

I spend a lot of time online, perhaps too much.  I read blogs and tweets and engage people wherever and whenever I can.  Using all of these methods of communications is not necessarily for me to just spout project management doctrine.  I look to share ideas to better myself and hopefully make life a little easier for others. It doesn't matter if it's a lifehack, a web app, or discovering a blog.  There is a lot of cool stuff out there and every day I find and learn something new.

Once in a while something does rub me the wrong way.  It might be someone trying to pick a fight in the blog comments or maybe it's someone flooding my Twitter stream with noise.  This weekend it was too little sleep in combination with too much Twitter noise.

As many Twitter users know, the more followers you get, the louder your megaphone.  To counter that, the more people you follow, the louder the noise.  The noise can sometimes be deafening.

I usually see the same topic cycle through my Twitter stream 4 or 5 times before I finally click on it.  What I like about this process is that it's organic.  The link seems to increase in value the more people I listen to tweet about it.  Once it hits critical mass in my head, I check it out.

So, what's the rub?

This weekend, I had over half a dozen people tweet the exact same thing at the same time.  My Twitter feed was momentarily flooded by people who subscribed to a website.  Rather than having people I follow retweeting the link organically, the site sent out the tweet.  That feature deprecated the value rather than increasing it.  Though we all may be fighting for positions in the stream, hoping someone will hear us, I like to follow a few simple rules.

My Twitter Retweet Rules

1. If you read something notable and it provides value, retweet it
2. If you read something that is not notable or does not provide value, do not retweet it
3. If someone I trust and respect tweets something, I see value
4. If more people I trust and respect retweet the link, I see even more value
5. If several people tweet the exact same thing at the exact same time, all value is deprecated

Graphic: Pictofigo

The Funnel Effect and My Kanban

GuyKawasaki tweeted about a really cool infographic on Alltop titled Why freeways come to a stop. I checked it out and what most interested me was the graphic The funnel effect (I circled it in red).

WIP

The funnel effect is a really good analogy of why you should limit your work in progress, like I do on my Personal Kanban.  In the analogy, just the right amount of water can go through as fast as it's put into the funnel.  But add extra water to the funnel, and the whole thing backs up.

Personal Kanban

In reality, keeping focus on just the right amount of work can allow you to finish more than if you didn't. Personally, I limit my work in progress to 3 items. I never thought it would have such a positive impact. So, what do you have to lose? Do you have a long list of to-do's, doing a little here and doing a little there?  Do you ever feel like you're not actually getting anything done?  Today, rather than trying to multitask, focus on just a few tasks until they are DONE. If you complete one task, you can add another to your focus list. Remember, 99% done is still not done.  At the end of the day, you'll feel a sense of accomplishment, preventing a traffic jam of work and actually getting stuff done.

The Story of Monte Carlo

Once upon a weekday meeting, I had a story to tell.  It was the tale of a project manager, who’s name really rings a bell. He quantified the total project cost, he didn’t miss a dime. He also computed the schedule, he was always aware of the time.

He used all these input values, with random amounts being his friend. He ran these simulations.  I thought they would never end.

The outcome was a distribution, a bell curve if you like.  On the edges we saw some low points, in the middle there was a spike.

Monte Carlo was this fellow’s name, he was a heck of a numbers guy.  We asked him if he ever made things up.  He said he would merely quantify.

Now don’t think Monte worked alone, he had a counterpart.  Her name was Jane Stake-Holder, he worked with her from the start.

Jane could be quite demanding, sometimes ignoring project scope.  But Monte managed the situation well, knowing creep was a slippery slope.

His technique was well documented, a change would make everything slip.  He told this to Jane Stake-Holder who you'd think would do a back-flip.

But numbers don't lie and neither did he, Jane knew Monte would put up a fight.  She backed down and submitted a change request, the schedule would extend to the right.

Graphic: Pictofigo

A Critical Path Facelift

After having the same look on my website for over 2 years, I think it's time for a facelift.  So, if you come to the site within the next week and notice things looking a little different, don't fret!  In addition to the frontend changes, I plan to move the site over to PowerVPS (Virtacore Systems), who hosts my other sites.  So, grab yourself a fresh cup of coffee (or tea) and continue enjoying my rants and insights. If you think the graphic above looks a little like me drawing a Critical Path, you should go to Pictofigo and check out their other offerings.  Thank you again to Pictofigo for doing such an awesome job!

Regards,

Derek

Warning – Use of PM Force Authorized

We went to an airshow this last weekend. Being I was in the Marines some 20+ years ago and spent the best of my time in the air in a helicopter, it was like a trip down memory lane. I loved the smells and sounds of the flightline. I even got to walk onto a CH-53.  It was the first time since May 09, 1990.  But I digress. Upon arriving at the airshow, I noticed a warning was painted on the flightline that made me clap my hands like a cymbal-banging monkey. My wife took a picture so I could somehow relate it to project management in a future blog post.

Here is my Project Management translation:

WARNING

Efficiently Managed Project

It is unacceptable to do work on this project without motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

Principle 5 Agile Manifesto of 2001 - February 11-13

While on this project all team members and the work under their control are subject to refinement.

USE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT FORCE AUTHORIZED

The Iron Law of Bureaucracy versus ICAgile

I was listening to This Week in Tech #264  and one of the guests was Jerry Pournelle. Though it's not necessary to go into the details of the NetCast, Jerry said something that had me scrambling for the rewind button.  He referred to his Iron Law of Bureaucracy. (Jerry) Pournelle'sIronLaw of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. One example in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, versus union representatives who work to protect any teacher (including the most incompetent). The IronLaw states that in ALL cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

I then watched a Ted Talk titled The Child-Driven Education.  There were three statements by Sugata Mitra that I want to reference.

1. Self-organizing system: Is where the system structure appears without explicit intervention from outside the system.

2. Emergence: The appearance of a property not previously observed as a functional characteristic of the system.

3. Speculation: Education is a self-organizing system, where learning is an emergent phenomenon.

So, what does this have to do with Project Management?  The organizational machine that is the Project Management certification ecosystem has become that second group Jerry Pournelle identifies.  There is now an entire industry dedicated to certifying people and keeping them certified, including the most incompetent. There is no focus on educating people in best practices, delivering value to customers, or increasing project success rates.

On the other end of the spectrum are the visionaries, the mentors, and coaches.  This is where I make my speculation.

Keep your eyes on the International Consortium of Agile (ICAgile).  At ICAgile, the certification path is divided into three main phases; a Fundamentals Phase, a Focus Track Phase, and a Certification Phase.  It's not all about getting certifications.  It's about educating and learning.  In the Fundamentals Phase, the goal is to educate the attendee with the values, principles and basic practices of Agile.  Having garnered the fundamentals of agile in the first phase, The Focus Track Development phase will have different tracks to choose from.  This will allow people to focus being educated in different functional areas like Project Management, Business Analysis, and Testing. Only after completing the courses in a focus track, will the applicant is eligible for the ICAgile "Professional" certificate.

I'm very bullish on ICAgile educating and people learning.

Being Agile is self-organizing by nature, does ICAgile have the unique opportunity to prove the Iron Law of Bureaucracy wrong?

Graphic: Pictofigo

My Personal Kanban 2.0

I commonly get asked what I personally use to manage my work. The answer is almost too simple. I use a Personal Kanban. Now, I'm no efficiency guru. I'm no expert on Kanban. I just need a simple system that satisfies a few requirements and makes sense to me.

Personal Kanban

Requirements

1. I need something visual to combat my ADD.

2. It must visually capture all of my Backlog of work.

3. I will help me visualize what Work is In Progress.

4. It allows me (and others) to see what got Done this week.

Now, I've been using task boards for probably half a decade now. When you have that one stakeholder who cruises by your office or cube (constantly) and asks what you're working on, you can point at the wall and not even look up from your monitor. The board proves its worth just by cutting down on those people interrupting your day.  After a while, people get used to knowing what's going on and appreciate the transparency.  It's strange that I need to point that out.  Who benefits by not embracing transparency?  That may be a question left to the comments.

The key difference between a Kanban board and a regular task board is a column limiting your work in progress.  My first exposure to this was from a Scrum Master training session being led by Sanjiv Augustine. Sanjiv displayed a PowerPoint slide of what appeared to be a Los Angeles freeway.  During rush-hour, the number of vehicles coming onto the freeway is limited (by on-ramp lights).  This attempt to control the volume of traffic flow onto the freeway allows vehicles already on the freeway to move at a faster pace and in turn exit the freeway.  This visual freeway analogy was like a light bulb moment for me.  When I got back to the office and began limiting my Work In Progress (WIP), I did indeed increase my delivery rate.  The days of multitasking are now in my past!

Jim Benson

Soon after I started using a Kanban, I met Jim Benson of Modus Cooperandi.  I would describe Jim as a Kanban Sensei.  If you ever want to know more about Kanbans, Jim's your man.  Go check out the  Personal Kanban website.  Though Kanban is kind of a background business process to me, I still check out the site from time to time to see how others are using Kanban.

Tool

To wrap this up, there's only one "tech" tool I use to bridge the gap between my home and office.  It's call AgileZen.  AgileZen is a Kanban web application.  Though I have all of my work  work on my Kanban board at the office, my wife would frown on seeing a wall of post-it notes next to my desk at home.  So, I use AgileZen to manage both my personal and work tasks while away from the office.  Some people may choose to just use the electronic version.  I just can't let go of the satisfaction of moving a post-it note from WIP to Done.

Graphic: Pictofigo

Why Agile Might Not Work (Video)

I was minding my own business when I noticed a tweet by Alistair Cockburn.  He clearly thought something was funny so I figured I'd check it out.  What awaited me was this video.  If you understand Agile or just interested about it, you should spend the next 3 minutes and 14 seconds enjoying a creative perspective on why Agile might not work for you.  It's very tongue-and-cheek.  The slideshow it was based on was located on the PMI website.  Since the site was updated, it isn't clear where it went.