Justine Toms and The Blogs

Justine Toms ignited quite a fire this week. It started with a presentation on the importance of online presence. Then, it continued with many heads considering revitalizing their blogs.

Who knows, it might be a new beginning.

Her online profile is: Justine Toms

About Trust and Agile as Behaviors

Something that amazes me is how easy we forget basic postulates. In this case, our believes determine our behaviors. Thus the connection between trust in the new ideas and our behavior towards implementing them.

If you want to read an interesting post on the connection between trust an becoming agile, head straight on to LeadingAgile and read Agile at the speed of Trust - an Overview (Written by Peter Callies).

A Scrum Certification Summer End

It has been an interesting summer. More interestingly, I am now a certified Scrum Master and Scrum Product Owner.

It feels good to know that an effort has been crowned properly.

Inertia and its anti-Scrum effect

Working routinely in a changing environment leads to waste, both in the professional and the personal life.

Somedays I just get out of home and take the route to work. The problem is when it happens on a weekend and I completely do not need to visit the office. By the time I realize that I have already wasted time and money on diesel.

The same happens when at work we do not actively choose what and when to do. This is one of the reasons why we should not skip the retrospectives at the end of each iteration, either sprint or change between workdays and weekdays schedule.

Do you have some special mantras that help you keep on track?

Scrum @ BPM

This morning, while waiting for the Office 2007 update, I was reading an article on the future of BPM - BPM in Ten Years? My Best Shot.

The combination of Scrum being implemented at work and BPM as my future professional target resulted in the idea that BPM's next incarnation will be a mixture of Scrum principles and BPM methodology.

To put it in a few more words, using Scrum, the team members are given freedom to choose their own paths to the target presented by the product owner. They act as rational personas and the result is a much more motivated and capable team.

On the other hand, currently there is little flexibility in the implementation of the BPM modelled processes. Very often the improvements are done like little "waterfall" development stages. There is little flexibility and continuation of the improvements.

This is exactly where the Scrum principles can help. They can empower the team members to provide feedback, influence the workflow and continuously improve, improve, improve... But then comes the question of the most proper management style to allow this to happen.

Peace one day

You are either a visionary or a crazy man.

One man is searching for like-minded people. Believing that there could be a simultaneous cease fire. Peace one day. Globally.

Currently, the current normal is that everyone is aggressive.

He keeps on doing it for years.

What is the difference between normal and crazy? Normal is what the majority accepts.

This year I heard about it one day after 21 Septermber

Can we change the majority's perception? Can we find and reach the right majority?

Will I hear it on the date next year? Will I have done something to implement the idea?

I am a TED translator

Today I can proudly tell you that my first TED translation is available. It is the speach about the upcoming singularity by Ray Kurzweil.

I am very happy to have the chance and bring this knowledge to people who are experts in other languages.