Last year I finished wirint Code Black and published it on LeanPub. It wasn’t an easy challenge, although I enjoy wiriting I’ve never written a technical book before and had never really self published anything.
This week I wanted to share some of the lessons learned since writing the book which I took into my current project Donuts and Dragons.
Lesson 1 – You’re going to sell a lot fewer copies than you think you are! I had plans of the book becoming a runaway best seller, and to be honest I’ve genuinely been overwhelmed by the positive feedback I’ve recieved (even some suggestions I should enter it into competitions). However, I’m still working as a Dev Manager and have no plans of retiring and living off the royalties just yet.
Lesson 2 – Scheduling a “writing day” doesn’t work. Firstly, it’s too much to expect yourself to write for 8 hours straight. Second, if something cancels that day then you’ve lost a lot of potential words. The best way to write is to a schedule. When writing D&D I set myself a goal of about 500 words every week day. The book doesn’t appear overnight, it appears incrementally and inevitably.
Lesson 3 – Plan what you’re going to write. Maybe this comes down to personal style? Or maybe it’s because both of my books are trying to teach rather than just entertain but I would have got completely lost if I hadn’t had my trusty outline. Procrastination occurs most often when you don’t know what you’re going to write, having a plan – even a high level one makes it easier to hit that word goal.
Lesson 4 – Be proud of what you’ve done. When I first released Code Black I found myself belittling it. When someone said “Adam’s written a book” I’d say something like “Yeah, but it’s only a self publish.” or “Yeah, but it’s not sold many copies.” Don’t put yourself down, you wrote a book. That’s amazing, it’s something millions of people want to do but few ever actually succeed. Don’t you dare undermine what you’ve done.
Lesson 5 – You’ll want to write another one. Writing a book is a lot like doing a marathon. At the time you’ll swear blind that you never want to do it again. Then your mind starts ticking and you starting having those ideas and before you know it you’ll be developing characters and outlines again. Why not!? You’re an author now!
Oh, and something a lot of people ask me what has been my proudest moment since publishing it? That one easy – when Gene Kim bought a copy!
There’s a certain irony that the characters in my book read The Phoenix Project, I do hope he smiled at that.
Have you written a book? Tech or otherwise – please share it with me, I love to read what other people have done!
Radical Candor, by Kim Scott is a book I’ve been aware of for a while but haven’t actually got around to reading.
I was expecting lots of information about giving feedback but I was pleasantly surprised that there was a lot more in there than that.
Scott discusses that to be great leaders and team members we must both care personally and challenge directly. Without these two qualities we fall into one of three other quadrants.
People who care but don’t challenge fall into Ruinous Empathy. These are the people who won’t tell a friend that they’re unzipped because they’re afraid of the conversation. They’d rather let their friend continue to embaress themselves rather than push themselves out of their comfort zone.
People who don’t care personally are split into one of two categories. If they do challenge but don’t do it with someone elses best interests at heart then they display obnoxious agression. Or, simply put are just jerks. If they don’t challenge then they see what they could do to improve and don’t do anything to help them. This is manimulative insincerity.
Scott teaches us that we must always strive to give direct feedback to people we work with because we care about their success and their feelings. She also discusses lots of ways to do that.
I’d been expecting much of this content before I started the book but what delighted me was the actionable advice on how to go about this. I want you to read (or listen) to the book so I won’t give it all away here (plus, you know, plagurism). Suffice it to say that if you do now feel you should give feedback there are lots of tips in there to help.
But this is just for managers right?
Wrong!
Kim discusses that everyone should feel they can give feedback. Peer feedback is one of the most valuable thing we can give, it shows we care about our colleagues.
So, would I recommend it. Absolutely – go and have a read. Stop being ruinously empathetic today and start supporting your friends and colleagues directly!
Over the last year I’ve invested time in trialing and adopting apps which help my productivity. In this post I’m going to share them and explain why I believe they’re invaluable.
Todoist
Todoist is an easy to use and intuitive TODO list application which supports projects, due dates, reminders, tags, and filters. It’s easy to use and syncs effortlessly across devices. I use it for everything from management work projects to keeping track of shopping lists and birthday presents.
The premium version unlocks additional features and it is well worth the money.
However, be aware downloading Todoist is enough to organise yourself. No tool can do that if you don’t have a system in place. I strongly recommend having a look at
Forest
Forest is an app which encourages you to put down your phone. I’ve written about it before and continue to use it. You can set how much time you’d like to “lock” your phone for and if you pick up before then your tree will die. Planning trees leads to gold which you can use to purchase more tree designs in the store or even plant trees in real life!
Braintoss
I started using this app this week and I’m really impressed. The premise is incredibly simple, the app records a quick message and then emails the text to the email address of your choice. Install on your watch and configure to the email of your Todoist inbox for a really effective way to record notes wherever you are and drop them right into your digital in tray!
Audible
Again, Audible shouldn’t be a surpise to anyone who’s read some of my recent blog posts. Listen to audiobooks while you’re driving or doing housework for a really effective way to consume books you wouldn’t ordinary have time to read. Especially if you practice building up your speed until you can listen in hamster mode!
And A Setting for Luck
Chances are your phone has a time limiter built in already, configure this to limit access to those time sync apps to 30 minutes each day. Being asked if you really want to spend your fourth hour on Facebook (or social network of choice) really is a great way to get you off your phone!
What are your favourite productivity apps? Do you use any which aren’t on my list?
This is a question I get a lot, what are Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org and which is “best”? The truth is there is no best, both have different certifications and a different business model. In this post I want to explain the differences between the two and help you decide which to choose.
Let’s start with what they do. Both Scrum.org and Scrum Alliance offer training courses and certifications for Scrum Masters and Agile Professionals. Both offer a variety of courses for Product Owners, Engineers, and other professions but in this post I’ll focus purely on the scrum masters.
You can think of these organisations like Exam Boards, if you pass their exam you get a certificate which you can present to any employer and it will prove that you have a certain level of scrum knowledge. You can also show the badges off to your friends and family but personally I’d recommend against that. I spent half an hour explaining to my mum that a Scrum Master had nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons…
Both organisations offer three levels of Scrum Master certification. For Scrum Alliance these are the Certified Scrum Master (CSM), the Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM), and Certified Scrum Professional Scrum Master (or CSP-SM). Scrum.org offers the Professional Scrum Master levels 1, 2, and 3 (more commonly known as PSM-I, PSM-II, and PSM-III).
Personally I hold the CSM from Scrum Alliance as well as the PSM-I and PSM-II from Scrum.org.
Where these organisations differ is in how they go about granting the certificates. Scrum Alliance require you to attend a training course organised by a certified trainer. The prices of these vary depending on whether they are being held remotely or in person, which country they are being held in, and the level of the course. Typically in the UK you will pay around £700 for a remote course and £2000 for an in person one. Obviously the trainer then pays a fee onto Scrum Alliance. Once you have completed the course you will be sent a link to take the exam on Scrum Alliance’s website. If you pass (the pass mark is 37/50 questions) you’ll be awarded your certificate.
Scrum.org also offer training courses. However, their courses are not a prerequisite to taking the exam. Personally I have never done a Scrum.org course, I simply logged onto the website and purchased the exam token. These vary slightly depending on level but the PSM-I exam is $150 dollars.
It is also worth noting that Scrum Alliance certificates expire and you will either need to attend another course or pay (about £30 I believe) to renew it every couple of years. Scrum.org certificates do not expire.
The next most obvious question is which is easier!? There is a general feeling that the Scrum.org exams are a little more challenging, however I’ve never seen any data to back this up. Personally I scored a couple of percent higher on the Scrum.org exam than the Scrum Alliance one however not enough to state clearly. If you’re looking for a simple answer on which one would be easier to achieve or which holds more market value then I can’t give that. I would say however that the PSM-II (and I assume the A-CSM) covers significantly more ground than the PSM-I and asks questions based drawn from personal knowledge rather than simply knowing the subject matter. There is a distinct step up in difficulty and, although I’ve never taken it I wouldn’t be surprised if the PSM-III was far more challenging again.
So there you have it, all the differences that I’m aware of between the two organisations. If you’re looking for a taught course with a certificate at the end then Scrum Alliance may be for you. If you’re interested in self study and funding then Scrum.org may be the better alternative however I’ve found that both are extremely high quality certificates.
I’ve had this book for a while and it finally reached the top of my Audible list. Measure What Matters has intrigued me for a while, especially as I am focusing on setting and meeting goals at the moment.
I have to confess to being a little disappointed. At it’s core the book discusses OKRs, a kind of public goal which does a very nice job of splitting out the goal and the actionable tasks required to complete it. Visibility creates transparency to make sure no teams are duplicating effort or conflicting priorities, they also allow people to assist each other in meeting their goals.
So far so good, I didn’t have a problem with any of that.
However, the majority of the book was a list of testamonials from the author’s long list of supporters. It was genuinely interesting to see how the technique has been applied to everything from IBM to U2. But I’m really not sure wheeling out the famous and successful was really needed (in the audiobook many of them actually contributed their parts). It felt more like a sales pitch of OKRs rather than a practical guide of implementing them.
I kept finding myself expecting the next chapter to be a “How to get started with OKRs in your business.” but alas, it never came.
Enlightening by adding a new way to think about goals, however disappointing because although I’m intrigued I feel far from equipped to take advantage of the concept.
Do you agree? Have you read Measure What Matters? What did you think?
I was recently facing a bit of a conundrum. I was trying to work out why I was reading far more using Audible than I was out of paper or even kindle books. The obvious answer was because because I was listening to 45 minutes of audiobooks at double speed every morning but I was only getting half an hour every other night with my real book (currently Waltzing with Bears). The former I was fairly sleepy at the start of the day, the latter as I’m trying to keep my eyes opening in the evening.
The obvious answer I came up was because I was spending less time with my mind on the physical book. But also most likely because I could listen further than I could read.
However, as I pondered the question a little further I also realised that I was trying to do several things in that precious 30 minutes in an evening. I journal every day, I am reading a book on my kindle as well as the paper book and I enjoy painting my Warhammer and Game of Thrones minatures to undwind. In other words I had too much WIP in my evening routine!
We all know that WIP is very bad news and kills all productivity, what I had uncovered in my own routine was a bottleneck where I was trying to push several projects through the same 30 minute space in my day.
Wondering where else these existed I began thinking about my working day and carved my time into three categories. These are Hands Free, which are tasks I can complete while my hands and eyes are occupied on something else like driving or housework. Computer, which I spend a lot of time at so I created two parts. Hands On, which are times when I can complete a task with my hands. For example reading a paper book or painting my toy soliders.
I decided to call these Personal Swimlanes, you can now clearly see why I was having so much trouble delivering on the last one. I was thrashing between the various projects with no focus on any of them.
So, what’s the solution?
Well – you’re looking at it. By indentifying which work falls into each categories I can properly throttle WIP coming through and prioritising. Right now I’m focusing all my “Hands On” time on finishing Waltzing with Bears. When I finish that (in 70 odd pages) I’ll look at what the next project to move onto is. At the moment it’s looking like that unit of Ultramarines I picked up the other day!
What Swimlanes do you have in your day? Am I missing any? How do you focus your precious hands on time to make sure you focus on one project before moving onto the next?
Performance Management are two words which have the power to strike dread into the hearts of developers and managers alike. For engineers it conjures images of being fired, for managers it’s the sinking feeling that you’re going to have difficult talks with people with people about the quality of their work.
But that isn’t what performance management is about. At least it shouldn’t be!
Performance Management is not about getting fired.
Performance Management should always be about you working with your boss and mentors to continue to improve your performance. It should involve feedback, praise, and coaching. It should be something junior engineers embrace because it helps them progress their career and develop their skills. However, giving feedback is very difficult and unfortunately finding a boss who will give you honest, valuable feedback is rare.
I could write pages about Performance Management but this post is intended as part of my Junior Developer series so instead I’m going to focus on the most common mechanisms companies use and what you should expect when you join.
Probation Periods
Probation periods are very common across the software industry (and elsewhere). In effect they’re a trial period for both you and your employer. They’re an opportunity for you to ensure you’re really happy with the company you’re working with but also for your boss to ensure you can do the job (or at least that you have the potential to do the job).
Typically probation periods last three or six months and during that time your notice period (the amount of notice the company has to give you and the notice you give the company if either wishes to end your employment contract) is significantly shorter. A month’s notice period is fairly typical for developers in the UK (or longer if it’s a more senior role), however during your probation this may be a week, or non existent. This is intended to support both sides. Personally I have never failed a probation, but I have left a company during my probation and being able to make that clean break was much simpler than having to wait an additional three months.
Every employer should set very clear objectives or what they expect you to achieve during this probation period. They should never simply book a meeting at the end of the three months to tell you if you passed or failed. The golden rule of good management is to never surprise your employer. A good manager will work with you during your probation and, if you’ve got some areas that you’re struggling make you aware of them so you’ve got plenty of time. You should never be unclear whether you’re on track to pass or fail a probation period.
1 to 1s
One of the most effective ways to support and coach your team is for managers to book in 1:1 sessions. Typically these are every couple of weeks but it varies with the individual and the circumstances. I have senior engineers who only watch to check in once a month and team leads I meet with weekly (or more often if they need it). I always hold more frequent 1:1s with people during their probation to make sure they’ve got the support they need.
Your 1:1 is your managers opportunity to coach and your chance to ask questions. It’s also your opportunity to talk about goals and career goals. There are countless excellent articles out there about 1:1s so I’ll leave it there and say that you should expect them and that they’re nothing to worry about.
1:1s are a great way to get feedback from your boss on what’s going well and where you need to improve.
End of Year Reviews
Most companies operate an end of year review cycle. These vary from company to company but they often involve talking about the positives and negatives of the year with your managers, some kind of goal setting exercise for the upcoming year, and often a discussion around pay and/or bonus. Often these are split into various conversations which may take place over a few weeks or even months.
The key is to understand what each session is for and what topics are likely to be discussed. This will help you think of examples where you’ve done especially well and give you a chance to think or a few areas where, with hindsight you may have done things a little differently.
It’s also helpful to understand what form of conversations the ones around pay and bonuses are likely to take. What’s normal for your company? Many television shows give the impression that you can march into your boss’s office and make a pitch for a higher salary. In reality (at least in the uk that’s rarely how it works). Often managers are given a pot of money to work with, once a year, and will have to make the fairest choices they can. However your manger be able to advice you on what happens at your company and what the financial review process will look like. Don’t be surprised if you’re not included in this process if you’ve been with the company for less than a year, it’s not uncommon for people who have recently joined to have to wait to be part of the uplift process.
When talking about goals for the following year try and be open and honest about what you would like to achieve. Ask your manager to support you and whether you think your ambitions are realistic. You can achieve a lot more if your manager is also looking for opportunities to stretch you than if you have to go hunting for them yourself.
Hopefully I’ve convinced you that normal Performance Management is nothing to be worried about. Sure, there are cases need to be coached through areas of under performance but the vast majority of what I’ve talked about in this post is the positive side of how to work with you manager to avoid needing and performance improvement plans.
What are your experiences of performance management? Are your experiences similar to mine?
I recently read Eat That Frog, a personal productivity guide by Brian Tracy.
Eat That Frog is a personal productivity book full of tips.
It’s an interesting book. There are 21 easy simple tips which work together, I especially like the format because it’s easy to dip in and out of. Some of the suggestions are very very good. Putting technology aside, breaking big goals into smaller steps, and making sure highest priority tasks are identified.
Brian Tracy makes a huge point of picking up the most important task for the day at the very beginning. Personally I’m not a fan of this approach (as long as it’s identified and gets done). But I can see the wisdom in it.
Would I recommend Eat That Frog? If you’ve not ready many personal productivity books before and are looking for a few tips to help you organise things and deliver – sure, there’s probably quite a lot in there you’ll like. If you’re not new to the genre then you probably won’t get a huge amount of new advice from the book.
I like to think of myself as prolific reader. I set myself the goal of twenty one books this year (very conservative for me because I’m not getting lunchtimes in the office to crack open a book) however at the time of writing I’m already up to 9 books and am expecting to have another two finished before the end of the week.
If you’ve read my post on Personal KPIs you’ll have seen that I track my goals to provide visual encouragement, but also an early warning if I’m running behind. Here’s my reading graph:
My reading progress for 2021. The green line shows what I need to consume to hit my goal of 21 books this year. The red shows my actually weekly progress.
I believe reading is one of the most important habits any adult can develop. There are millions of books out there with valuable information and contrasting ideas which will stretch you and force you to make a decision. There are books on every conceivable subject and (just in case you needed any more motivation) they’re a fantastic way to unplug and relax.
However, before I go any further let me tell you a joke.
One day a chicken walks into a library, a little surprised the librarian asks how he can help and the chicken replies (perhaps not unexpectedly) "Book!". The librarian passes a widely recommended book which had recently been returned and passes it to the chicken who struts off. The following day the chicken returns and says to the librarian "Book book!" Deciding to humour the chicken the librarian passes the chicken two books. The third day the chicken returned once again and went up to the librarian. Ready this time when the chicken said "Book, book, book..." the librarian hands the chicken three books. Curious now the librarian follows the visitor, determined to find out what was going on and where the chicken was going. As they rounded the corner to a quiet part of the library the chicken strode up to a frog and placed the books on the table. The frog sighed, looked at the books and said "Read it, Read it, Read it..."
Maybe it works better when you read it out loud?
The point of the joke is this. Don’t be a frog! Your job is not simply to read books and say “Read It” over and over again. Reading isn’t about bragging, it’s about expanding your knowledge. Always make notes, scribble some ideas you have while you’re reading the books, non-fiction ones at least. Otherwise you’re simply being a frog. The authors of the books are trying to convey information to you – try to take at least one action from each book you read and use it.
Back to the orginal question. How to absorb so many books, especially given a full time job and a hectic lockdown home time?
The answer is two fold. Audiobooks and Playback speed.
A lot of people have a snobbery around audiobooks. In the same way many people say that reading off an e-reader isn’t as good as a real book. However, I’d ask you – if you had the choice of waiting until you could pick up a paper book or listening to a pre-recorded version while you’re doing the washing up or driving somewhere which would you rather do? I do read physical books and on my kindle too, but the vast majority are audiobooks. There are many providers but personally I’m a huge fan of audible, if you don’t like the book you can simply return it. You can’t ask much fairer than that!
The second way of improving the rate at which you listen. My wife laughs at me because she says I listen to everything at “hamster speed” which I suppose I do. The first time you try to speed up the playback it is really hard to follow what’s going on but, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you catch up. Try adding going to 1.2x and then a few days later 1.4x and so on. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can get up to 2.0x and even 2.5x. For quite a while I resisted this, I didn’t want to rush my absorbtion of the books or my enjoyment of the fiction. However, honestly, if I listen to something now at 1.0x times it sounds like the narrator is drunk, speaking slowly, and slurring.
Do you listen to audiobooks? Do you use audible or another supplier? What speeds do you listen to and why? Comment below and don’t forget to follow the blog for future updates.
I’ve spent a lot time reading about daily habits and routines recently. Both Atomic Habits and Routine Machine strongly advocate spending a small amount of time each day to contribute towards your larger goals. I like the idea, after all as an agile geek I fully support the importance of transparency. Otherwise, how can we expect to inspect and adapt?
I mentioned some of my 2021 goals recently. Some of these are perfect examples where I must display if not daily, then weekly behaviour if I’m going to hit them. Donuts and Dragons isn’t going to write itself, I need to put words on the page day after day. My reading goal isn’t magically going to happen, I need to spend a little time each morning listening to audible or perhaps reading in the evening.
To this end I’m experimenting with a Personal KPI spreadsheet. In this spreadsheet I’m tracking various KPIs such as “Donuts Words Written” and “Time Reading”. I’m also tracking various KPIs around health and daily routine. Am I hitting Inbox Zero every day?
My spreadsheet gives me a daily score, however most beneficial I believe will be the weekly rolling averages. I don’t have to write a blog post every day, however I aim to write at least three a week. I don’t have to listen to my audiobooks every morning but I do want to make sure I’m listening for an appropriate time each week to hit my quarterly targets.
Am I on track to hit my personal goals this year? Photo by Lukas on Pexels.com
It may seem like overkill, but I’m hoping that this mechanism will help me stay on track for some of the big goals I’ve set myself this year.
What do you think? Is this overly complex for personal goals? Do you have a similar mechanism and how did it work for you? Let me know in the comments below!
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