@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

mike_bowler

@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io

Helps IT teams and their management improve through coaching & training. Agile, kanban, technical, neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis.

When not doing any of that, he can often be found out in the woods with a camera.
Kelowna, BC, Canada.

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mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Spectacular Northern Lights last night in #kelowna. Only the second time in my life that I’ve seen them so this was quite a treat. #auroraborealis

Vivid streaks of colours in the sky. Mostly purples and whites in this shot
Vivid streaks of colours in the sky, above the airport, with the silhouette of the mountains in the background. Purples, greens, whites
Vivid streaks of colours in the sky above the airport, with the silhouette of a mountain in the background

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

@daverooneyca and I are doing a public AMA (ask-me-anything) on all things Agile on May 1 (next week). Bring your questions and get the perspective of two coaches who each have 25+ years of experience.

More details at: https://gargoylesoftware.com/coaching-ama/ #agile

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

If you want metrics out of Jira, the single most important thing you need to access is the issue history and it’s not obvious how to get that.

In this second part on the Jira API, I dig into the issue history. How do you get it, what can you expect to find there and more interestingly, what's not there that you really need.
https://agiletechnicalexcellence.com/2024/04/09/jira-issue-history.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

I've been in Portland this week for Agile Open Northwest This was the first in-person event they've run since covid and was really great to all be back again. So many fabulous conversations on topics ranging from FaST Agile to metrics to psychology to forecasting to AI.

https://www.agileopennorthwest.org/

Next up will be Agile Open Canada in Victoria in May.
https://www.agileopen.ca/

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

I'll be in Portland for Agile Open Northwest next week and hope to see many of you there. If we don't already know each other, please introduce yourself.

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

I frequently hear “my people won’t speak up during meetings”. Step one to fixing this is to figure out why this might be happening.

The factors I usually see are:

  1. Insufficient psychological safety
  2. Insufficient motivation
  3. They feel they have nothing to contribute
  4. They’re focused on other things they consider higher priority
  5. They’re tired or burnt-out
  6. The meeting facilitation might just be poor

More about each at https://unconsciousagile.com/2024/03/11/people-not-participating.html

mike_bowler, to LEGO
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Ellen Grove and I have updated / refreshed the instructions for our LEGO retrospective "Moose on the Table". If you're doing an in-person retro and are looking for something different to really get people talking, then check this out. Even the quietest groups start to open up when the LEGO comes out.
https://unconsciousagile.com/2019/07/12/moose-on-the-table.html
#retrospective #LegoSeriousPlay #lego

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

I’m seeing more and more situations where someone will say “this is a safe space” in a meeting invite or at the beginning of a session. While I appreciate that the person saying the words really wants that to be true, the fact they feel the need to say it, highlights the fact that it probably isn’t. If it really were safe, we would already know that.

Well if saying the words isn’t enough, what would we have to do to actually make the space safe?

More at https://unconsciousagile.com/2024/02/25/this-is-a-safe-space.html

mlevison, to random
@mlevison@agilealliance.social avatar

As Google becomes useless and LLMs regurgitate drivel, I'm looking for Independant minded Blogs. I'm trying to curate a set of trusted sources that I can recommend to students.

Examples of what I want: https://dannorth.net/blog/, https://simplybegin.co.uk/blog/, https://medium.com/the-liberators

Please boost for reach - my current list follows.

Exclusions

mike_bowler,
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

@mlevison @gdinwiddie Completely self-serving but here are my blogs :-) Why three, rather than one? I ask myself that regularly ;-)

https://improvingflow.com <- mostly kanban with general agile

https://unconsciousagile.com <- where agile meets the unconscious mind

https://agiletechnicalexcellence.com <- agile development topics

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

We talk a lot about slicing stories but then when it comes to slicing larger types (epics, features, etc), we tend to wave our hands and say “it’s the same, only bigger”, which while true, is rarely helpful.

A story is the smallest piece of value passing through your workflow. By extension, any larger types must also be the smallest piece of value at that level.

More at https://improvingflow.com/2024/02/21/slicing-epics.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

When the worst effects of COVID had appeared to pass, many companies started implementing return-to-office mandates for their knowledge-workers. In the absence of any real data, these gut reactions were the best we could do.

Today, however, data is starting to appear. Three recent reports from Atlassian, the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, and Pittsburgh University are giving us some data, with which we can challenge our assumptions.

More at https://improvingflow.com/2024/02/11/remote-work-what-does-the-data-say.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Inattentional blindness is when we are so focused on some things that we completely miss other things that should be completely obvious. This can be used to hilarious effect, as you’ll see below, and at the same time is something we need to take into account in business.

More at https://unconsciousagile.com/2024/02/04/inattentional-blindness.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Cognitive load is an indication of how hard the brain works to perform specific actions. There are three different kinds of cognitive load:

  1. Intrinsic load: Complexity of the problem
  2. Extraneous load: Outside distractions
  3. Germane load: The load created by storing your thoughts to long term memory.

If the intrinsic and extraneous loads are too high then there won’t be enough capacity to write to long term memory. Effectively, we stopped learning.

More at https://unconsciousagile.com/2024/01/28/cognitive-load.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Technical debt is made up of all those things in our system (architecture, code, documentation, etc) that are working but are of sufficiently poor quality that they cause us to move slower when implementing new functionality.

This isn't what Ward Cunningham had in mind when he first coined the term but it's how the term is used today.

One study shows that on average, developers waste 23% of their development time on technical debt. Over a day a week.

More at https://agiletechnicalexcellence.com/2024/01/21/technical-debt.html

jchyip, to random
@jchyip@mastodon.online avatar

A groundbreaking study shows kids learn better on paper, not screens. Now what? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/kids-reading-better-paper-vs-screen

mike_bowler,
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

@jchyip that's really interesting. I know that I retain more from a paper book but I'd assumed that was entirely from the fact that I highlighted passages and put tabs in. It hadn't occurred to me that the paper itself would make a difference.

mike_bowler,
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

@mlevison @jchyip I didn't actually spend much time on the Guardian article - I went straight to the study they referenced. Clearly a lot more research needed and yet early results are interesting.

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Polyvagal Theory is the work of Dr Stephen Porges and describes what we know today about how our nervous system, and entire body, responds to how safe or threatening the world feels to us. This has significant implications for the behaviours we see in ourselves and in others. It’s important to note that we react based on our perception of how safe the world is, and not how safe it actually is.

More at https://unconsciousagile.com/2024/01/14/polyvagal-theory.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Reflections in the water

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

The Cinnamon bear is actually a variant of the black bear, that is a brown colour, not a brown bear. An actual brown bear would be larger and have a shoulder hump.

mike_bowler,
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

@deborahh Grizzlies and Kodiak's are both sub-species of brown bears. I haven't seen either of those in the wild yet, although I do live in Grizzly country so it's just a matter of time. ;-)

If by ghost bear, you mean the spirit bear then yes, that's a black bear. Haven't seen one of those either.

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

When we look for opportunities for improvement, at some point every team will bring up meetings as being an ongoing problem for them. When we dig into what the actual problems are, we find they always fall into one of three categories.

More at https://improvingflow.com/2023/11/19/improving-meetings.html

mike_bowler,
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

@deborahh A similar situation - I had a team that was complaining about how planning meetings were a waste of time and they wanted to stop doing them. I explained the intent of the meeting and said so long as they satisfied the intent, I didn't care if they had the meeting or not. Couple of days later, I was told that they'd decided to do more planning, not less, only with a smaller group of people who were all engaged.

Amazing what happens when you give people autonomy.

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

I occassionally hear from managers that their people just aren’t motivated to do anything. This is rarely the complete story as these people are clearly motivated to do many things, just perhaps not those things that the manager wants them to do.

More about amotivation at https://unconsciousagile.com/2023/11/12/amotivation.html

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

I got a demo of Code Whisperer (one of the AI assisted coding tools) and it really felt to me like the primary use case for this is dealing with massive amounts of boilerplate code. It helps you write it and helps you manage it.

I really feel that we're solving the wrong problem here. If we agree that boilerplate code is a bad thing then why don't we use a language/framework that doesn't require it?

Instead of simplifying, we're adding even more complexity on top with a fancy AI tool.

mike_bowler, to random
@mike_bowler@hachyderm.io avatar

Each of us has an inner map of the world with rich connections between all the pieces. When we attempt to communicate with others, we're limited by the words we use, which can't possibly capture the richness of our internal map. As a result, we lose significant information as we try to communicate.

As coaches, we care because this will limit options for our clients. By understanding what's happening, we can ask better questions to help our clients move forward.

More at https://unconsciousagile.com/2023/10/14/nlp-meta-model.html

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