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Archives for January 2015

Best of the Web 01/30/2014

January 30, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Image by Vectorolie   at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image by Vectorolie at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are you ready for some footbaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllll?

Superbowl Sunday is right around the corner and this week’s edition of Best of the Web is sure to be just as thrilling.

Shocking News

So let me get this straight Google delays Google Glass while Microsoft creates quite a buzz with their Hololens announcement? I would have liked to seen the Vegas odds on that happening. But with the success of the Microsoft Kinect this is a natural progression.

Microsoft wasn’t done, they also previewed Microsoft 10 and announced free upgrade from Windows 7.

Just In Case

Speaking of Windows, Classic Shell is the best free add-on for Windows 8. If you’re like half of Windows 8 users that still wants a Start Menu, then check it out.

Change the way I drive

I might be late to the party on the Waze app but I am loving this App. I just downloaded it this week after a co-worker was telling me about it. So far I really like the app and found it really accurate even for smaller metropolitan areas.

Opensource

I Spent some time on Github this week and even joined in the discussion for ASP.NET 5. Make sure you join the conversation for what format the documentation should be for ASP.NET 5.

Enjoy the Super Bowl this week. Let me know if I missed anything this week.

Filed Under: Quick Tip Tagged With: quick tips

Complete Agile Podcast List

January 23, 2015 by Thomas Henson 6 Comments

Why Listen to Agile Podcasts

If you are continuously improving your Scrum Team, should you not take the same approach to your scrumification? A way you can increase your scrumification in Agile Development is to try and consume as much information as you can.  One of the ways I like to do that is by listening to podcasts. The reason podcasts are so great is because they are FREE and, it is EASY to listen to them anywhere. Especially if you have a hellish hour-long commute like I do.

Passing Cars

Where to find Agile Podcasts?

Searching for anything in the iTunes store is always so clunky compared to finding a list online, but I still tried to search for Scrum and Agile Podcast. I was able to find some Agile podcasts but it also threw in podcasts that weren’t Agile-based. After searching online I didn’t find a resource listing out specific Agile Podcasts.

(However I did find a great resource for Development Podcast from John Sonmez and I recognize his list as the inspiration for this list)

headphones

After searching for Agile Podcast/Scrum Podcast I didn’t find any specific Ultimate/Complete/Best list of Agile podcasts. So I decided to create one.

Complete Agile Podcast List

(The following are in no particular order. Except the fact that This Agile Life is first because they have an MBA on the show)

This Agile Life – A podcast with about 4(+/-  1) rotating hosts that hold 30-45 minute discussions on Agile topics. One of my favorite podcasts because 1) the host has an MBA and 2) all of the hosts are really knowledgeable.

  • Daily Standup – Episode only had one host, John Sextro, but a lot of great tips about running your daily stand up. Now matter how long
    you have been doing Scrum, this episode will give you some ideas for your standups.

The Agile Coffee  – Episodes are done in a Lean Coffee format, meaning, where topics are voted and discussed for 5 minutes, then another vote is taken to decide to carry on the discussion or move on. There are different people on the show, but it’s more or less 2 people with the 3 hosts of the show.

  • Episode 16 – Discussion on the Hackathons Vic recently ran was very interesting, and how his company has been facilitating Hackathons is great information.

The Agile Revolution – Craig Smith, Renee Troughton and Tony Ponton are the 3 hosts of this podcast and have guests that appear on the show as well. Most episodes are around 45 minutes and the series has about 80+ episodes to date.

The Daily Scrum – The series ran during 2012 and has about 19 episodes.
Last episode was in 2012. About 17 episodes long.

Agile Weekly – Podcast has been running since 2009 and has about 130+ episodes. Most episodes are under 20 minutes. The last podcast was in mid-June 2014.

Scrum For Success – Series ran for 5 episodes in 2009. No current episodes.

Agile Toolkit Podcast – A wealth of information with a ton of episodes. Many episodes feature a lot of big names in the Agile Community. Topics
go from Scrum Certification to how to set up your team rooms. Most episodes are under 30 minutes, which provides a
great opportunity to listen on the car/train to work. Bob Martin Episodes Executive Transition – Great episode for learning how to guide your leadership into the Agile world.

Agile University – The idea for this podcast is to give an overview of agile in under 5 minutes. Great way to bring someone into the Agile fold
in 8 short episodes.

Confessions of an Agile Activist – 7 episodes spanning 2007 to 2013; the host talked about bringing the podcast back sometime. Contains a 3 part series on selling Scrum.

Arrested DevOps –  Host Matt Stratton, Trevor Hess, and Bridget Kromhout talk about DevOps topics. The Podcast is current and currently has 29 episodes.

Agile Chicago Style – New Podcast from the Chicago Agile community. New episodes published every month.

Meta-Cast – Agile podcast hosted by Josh Anderson and Bob Galen. Podcast has over 65 episodes and 2 episodes are added monthly.

Tell Me What I Missed

Just like in Agile development, this is the first release of the Agile Podcast list, so it’s not going to perfect. In fact, it will take many releases to become a GREAT Agile Podcast List. So be sure to let me know what I have missed or any ideas for improving the list by  posting comments, Tweeting, or sending me an email.

Filed Under: Agile Tagged With: Agile, Agile Resource, Podcast, Scrum

Best of the Web 01/16/2015

January 17, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

A lot of products on the list this week. Below is a picture of our record .25 snow this week…..oh and some great links:

snow on trees

If you have a need to create screencast, you know the software you are using can speed up your workflow. Camtasia is an amazing tool. It is pricey at 300 for the PC version but worth it. They do run a 30 day free trial but after the 30 days I was hooked.

While you are making screencast you will need a good microphone. Let me repeat that, you need a good microphone to make screencasts. I really like the Blue Microphones and have both a Yeti and Snowball. We use the Yeti at work in our conference room and I have a snowball at home. The Snowball is a great entry microphone at $50 and the one I use for screencasting.

In a meeting this week there was a discussion about using Discourse for a project I might be working on. While I had not heard of it, after some research I realized I had seen it used on many sites. Discourse is a new forum/discussion platform and is opensource. I can’t wait to start playing with it.

During the past year I have gotten into the cloud computing on a small scale. Microsoft Azure has an awesome 30 day trial which I ended up keeping the service after that. In the next few months I will post some tutorials on using Azure.

Let me know if I missed anything.

Filed Under: Quick Tip

Book Review – Nuts

January 13, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Back a couple of years ago while working on my MBA, I had to read  Nuts: Southwest Airlines Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. At first I looked at it as an assignment I just needed to get done, but what I found was an amazing story about a start-up.

airplane taking off
Photo by khunaspix,
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Southwest Airlines was a renegade airline back in the 80’s and 90’s. The company  started out as a regional airline in Texas but has became one of the biggest airlines in the US.  Many people attribute Southwest’s success to their low fares but over the years Southwest wasn’t the only company with low fares. So if low fares weren’t the cause of Southwest’s success, what was? Below are some of the reasons I attribute to  Southwest’s success.

Motivation

  • Celebrations help Southwest motivate team members to achieve their mission. Southwest’s team members work together to achieve goals then celebrate achieving those goals with a party.
  • Giving back to charities keeps employees motivated by letting them know they have a purpose other than just a great career at a great company. Together they are helping the Ronald McDonald House all around their hubs.
  • Maintaining a company newsletter that is interesting and keeps the employees engaged.
  • Painting the Planes builds morale and a sense of pride (and is just fun).

Communication

  • Southwest creates an internal news letter that allows for company wide communications.
  • Southwest has a innovative marketing campaign that includes using front line team members for their ad pieces.
  • Southwest celebrates win and losses with all team members which allows for more communication between team members.

Management of Change

  • Southwest is known for creating an environment that allows for a culture of change.
  • The Southwest “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” program encourages change management.
  • Southwest hires personnel who might not have the industry bias toward their area of expertise.

Ethics & Integrity

  • Charitable contributions and giving back to the community.
  • Honoring all contracts even when legally Southwest could back out.
  • Herb is able to work closely with unions on contracts in good faith.
  • Southwest puts employees first, even over profit.

Time Management

  • Southwest team members take an ownership role in their jobs.
  • Southwest team members regularly do jobs outside of their scope. Herb can be seen working with the ground crew around Thanksgiving.
  • Southwest team members are encouraged to show their unique personalities throughout their work. Herb arm wrestles for charity and publicity.

Power & Politics

  • Southwest keeps a policy of giving all levels of team members too much information. This allows for all team members to know what is going on with the company at all times
  • Southwest has a policy of “being serious about work, but not taking yourself serious.”
  • Southwest has an open door policy meaning that all levels of employees can talk wit the CEO or any manager.

Decision Making

  • Southwest’s motto for decision making is “do the right thing”.
  • Southwest uses the “do the right thing” attitude for all team members, not just leaders.
  • Southwest givse their employees as much information as possible, which improves their decision making ability.
  • Simplicity is one way Southwest speeds up decision making, this prevents paralysis analysis.
crazy face
Image courtesy of artur84 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While this book has never been listed as the top 10 business books to read, I think it’s a must read. A lot of the things Southwest did in the early years has been copied many times over now. Southwest was one of the first companies to embrace the weirdness factor and only hire weird employees.  If you are looking for a book on how to run a successful start-up, start with this book.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books, Leadership, Management

Best of the Web 01/09/2015

January 9, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

What a cold week! I hope everyone is enjoying the Polar Plunge this week. Let’s find out what I thought was awesome on the Web this week.

snow in park

We were looking for free stock photos today at work. Here are some free stock photos we found:

  • Morgue File
  • Stock Up
  • Good Stock Photos

January is normally the time of year people begin to focus back on their health. My wife has been talking about Sworkit since this summer and this week I finally downloaded it. Wow it was a really good workout. Sworkit is available in Google Play and App Store. If you are using the app on iPhone it integrates with iOs Health.

During the past week I have spent way too much time on Wareables.com. If you researching any wearable technology be sure to check out their reviews. Just this week rumors were out that Apple will release the iWatch in March.

Jeff Sutherland is offering a free webinar on Scaling Scrum. Great opportunity to learn Scrum from one of the founders of the community. If your a Sutherland fan checkout his latest book
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
. It’s a great book for anyone interested in Scrum or just learning how to get things done.

 

Let me know if I missed anything this week.

 

Filed Under: Quick Tip

Book Review – Winning Jack Welch

January 5, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To Book by Jack and Suzy Welch is a book about how to succeed in business the Jack Welch way. The book offers advice for your career from Jack’s experience.
success starts here sign
Jack Welch was the famed GE CEO that come up from the ranks at GE. Welch’s tenor as CEO was from 1981 – 2001. During Jack’s time at GE a lot of people under him went on the become executives or CEO of other companies. Winning gives tips for navigating your career as a whole. Not a how to guide for your career but a wholesitc approach to career/business management.

In Winning Jack describes his philosophical management approach. Welch provides many examples from his career at GE and speaking engagments around the world since retirement. One story that stuck out was about Jack’s first big mistake. Early in his career Jack was running a factory at 28 and was responsible for creating an explosion at his plant. Jack was sure he was going to get chewed out by his leadership but instead was asked what he had learned. Imagine the impression this left on Jack, throughout his career Jack took the same approach with his staff. Success has cost and Jack is very open those costs. He admits to failing in the work life balance area and that he didn’t have a very good relationship with his kids while they were small. Part of this could be attributed to a generational mind set because it wasn’t seen as a priority in his era. The book overall covers how to succeed in the world of business and life the Jack Welch way.books on shelf

With every book I read I like to pull out the points that I can apply in my business/life.

Winning’s  3 key themes

  1. Optimistic outlook – One key theme Jack hits you over the head with is to never consider yourself a victim. Even in times where you are the victim it is does you no good to play the victim card. Instead he encourages readers to take a can do attitude with them into everything they do. Sitting around blaming others is not going to fix the situation, the most important thing is to move forward. Do not let setbacks derail you. Jack devotes a couple of chapters on career development and having a positive attitude is the first key to having a successful career. No matter what position Jack was hiring for he always placed a positive attitude as the first trait he was looking for in a candidate.
  2. Candor – The most used word in the book because it is at the core of all the principles Jack teaches. None of the other principles will work unless you are in a candid environment. Welch differentiates between being candid versus mean spirited. Candor allows you to have honest and open evaluations in your organization. People know where they stand because of the candor in your organization. Think about how well you could benefit from open and honest feedback from your staff and leadership.
  3. Executive Training Programs – During Jack Welch’s tenor as CEO at General Electric, GE was known as a hotbed of talent. Many Senior-level executives and future CEOs came from GE. While hiring great talent accounted for some of that success, the main reason was because of their executive training programs. Jack says the seed for the idea was from Pepsi but the success of the program was from the GE leadership. Management would identify potential future leaders in the company and enroll them in the executive training programs where they would be trained to become executives.  In baseball terms Welch called this stacking his bench. He was always trying to ensure when they lost a great leader they always had someone ready to step in and replace him.

Conclusion

This was the second time I read this book and probably won’t be the last time I read it. It’s one of those books you need to read every so often to keep yourself motivated. Some good career tips about how to find the career you want and how to go about evaluating companies you want to work for. Hopefully you will read this book and apply some of the same strategies to your career. If you liked this article be sure to sign up for my email list.

Filed Under: Book Review Tagged With: Book Review, Books, Business, Motivation

Best of Web 01/02/2015

January 2, 2015 by Thomas Henson Leave a Comment

Happy New Year! The first best of the Web for 2015.
margarita

Great book from John Sonmez  titled Soft Skills. I purchased the book through Mannings MEAP program but it was just released for the public in the last week. Soft Skills is a macro-level look at the soft-skills software developers should learn for a successful career/life. Even though book is targeted for developers the same approach could be applied to any profession. Must read for anyone.

While we are talking about books to read, here is a post from Pat Flynn for a couple of more I will be reading in 2015. Smartcuts by Shane Snow is the first one off the list I will be reading.

And if you are already working on your soft skills don’t forget about your charisma. We could all improve our likability.

Jeremy Jarrell released “Agile in the Real World” on Pluralsight. I’ve watched about half of the modules and really thought it was great.

The talk around the web in December was mostly about the Sony hack. Sometimes we forget how vulnerable our computer systems are to attack but just in case check this evil USB necklace. As developers I have become numb to the security hacks because they always seem to involve a big company. The reality is we are all under attack daily even if it’s not by a USB necklace.

Since the new year it’s a great time to read up on IT predictions for 2015. Here are few that caught my attention:

  • 5 Big Data trends  Internet of things stays on the list
  • 10 Web Design Trends Long scrolling sites? So SPAs will be big?
  • 10 Strategic Tech Trends Internet of things and 3D printing will be big for sure in 2015.

 

Let me know if I missed anything this week.

 

Filed Under: Quick Tip

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