As someone who thinks and writes about retrospectives, I sometimes find myself musing on the other half of the bookend...what about at the beginning of things? I think about chartering projects, and project kickoffs and iteration/release planning activities. How can we use what we've learned in our retrospectives to get the next project or increment of work off to the best start.
Today I saw a post on the Open Space mailing list that pointed me to the Anecdote blog from a group in Australia. Shawn writes about Pre-Mortems. It's an unfortunate name ("before death"), but the intent...
I must admit, it's exciting to wake up one day and find our book on the Best of 2006 books list.
Esther and I had a great time this evening fielding questions about retrospectives at the Richmond Virginia APLN chapter meeting. We asked those present to create a backlog of their burning questions, then we answered those that table groups said were their highest priorities. The questions ranged from best/worst retrospectives to how to convince managers of ROI to how to handle "prisoner" participants. We had a lot of fun, renewed acquaintances, and met interesting new people. I hope...
I'm at home for a brief stop between two events that I've anticipated all year.
The Consultants' Retreat and Network (founded in 1997 by my friend Norm K.) celebrated its 10th anniversary year this week. We gathered in Newport, Oregon, USA, once again for a week of unexpected surprises, generous idea-sharing, and the kind of insights into my practice that I've come to expect from the event. Charlie Poole convened it this year.
As time passes, I will discover more benefits from attending, but so far I have a very cool new sweatshirt and a terrific quote from Rosabeth Moss Kanter, "Everything...
I read Garr Reynolds' blog, "Presentation Zen," on presentation design and skills.
Today, it features an excerpt from Bill Clinton's recent speech at Georgetown University.
Reynolds highlights two paragraphs from Clinton's speech.
"We believe in a politics...dominated by evidence and argument. There is a big difference between a philosophy and an ideology, on the right or the left. If you have a philosophy, it generally pushes you in a certain direction or another. But like all philosophers, you want to engage in discussion and argument. You are open to evidence, to new learning. And you are certainly...
Pssst! Hey, look over there. You know, just over there to the right. See the events list? The next "Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills" public workshop will happen Dec. 5-7. We have a few spaces left for folks who want to get good at this "individuals and interactions" and self-organizing teams stuff. Click over there and get more information.
While you're there, notice that the "Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great!" first public workshop since we published the book is also coming up soon.
Wow! What a wealth of opportunity awaits...just over there to the right. :->