I recently attended a presentation by Dr. Prakash in North Dallas. He was born in Delhi, India and worked with Ghandi in the mid-20th century. His main theme is meditation and the benefits that regular practice can give to anyone disciplined enough to practice it. He has been a practicing psychologist most of his life, and at 85 still works 11 hours a day. He attributes his longevity and productivity in large part to his disciplined meditation practice.
Much of his presentation provided scientific, medical and metaphysical explanations and support for the benefits of meditation. One point he made is that we tend to over-use our left brain, which is heavily required for functioning in our busy, technological lives. We are constantly using logic and language to get through the day. Meditation relaxes the left brain and helps the right brain, the creative brain, to wake up and take up more of the load. This shift occurs almost immediately when you begin meditation but shows the most long term and daily benefit if meditation is adopted as a daily practice at regular times.
Prakash meditates in 20 minute sessions, 3 times a day. His reasoning is that our days are divided into three parts: work, leisure, sleep. So he meditates before starting each different section of the day. In the morning, the best time to meditate is right after a morning shower. This allows the mind to be fully awake and alert rather than groggy from sleep. After work, when we tend to be stressed and off-center, a session can relax our mind before we begin our leisure activities. One last session can be done just before bedtime to ensure a good night's sleep.
3 times a day for 20 minutes might be too much for a beginner. It takes practice to allow ourselves to slow down and actually relax. Starting with twice a day for 10 minutes each might be a good way to begin. The first time you meditate, 10 minutes might seem like a long time. Also, some instruction in a particular technique can help.
Prakash recommends a breath control technique. In this you close your eyes, focus on the front of your forehead just above your eyebrows in the center. Breath in slowly, wait a second or two, then exhale. Clear your mind, focus on your breathing and continue keeping your mind clear of anything else. Relaxing music can also help.
It was inspiring to see someone of his age so engaged and energetic.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Three Themes from Social Artistry
I mentioned that I attended a Jean Houston lecture. Most of that entry was a summary of her background and the experience. I did not say much about the content of the evening. Here I will pick three of the main themes and summarize. These themes and more are elaborated in detail in an online interview.
- We are in a time when something big is trying to happen
- We have lost touch with our senses, both externally and internally
- We have the potential to push through the current transition but we have to learn to fire on more burners
These are three of the themes that have been a part of her work over many years. They are elaborated even more in this interview. Much of her social artistry work is intended to help people find ways to add and express personas in order to get more in touch with the multiple dimensions that help us grow into change.
One way to move consciousness and being forward and upward is to remove negative patterns of thought, which in turn remove negative patterns of behavior. Houston agrees this is a valid approach, but prefers something that Jung also preferred that can be called "active imagination". In this approach, positive thoughts become personas and are added as dimensions to our being. As new things are added, old patterns wither and die due to lack of fertilization.
We are in a time window in the last quarter century that is the beginning of a momentous change in human history. Sadly, our brains, educational systems and culture is much better suited for the world as it was 150 years ago. The increase in speed of information transfer, cultural change and financial-political upheaval are building toward a new paradigm that has not been adequately articulated with a story that can carry the weight of the change.
We have become too uni-dimensional as humans. We allow our technology to run us rather than the other way around. We lose things that are valueable that have a much higher sensory value and is replaced by more cerebrally-focused activities to the exclusion of the senses. We do not have the inclination or the power to go within and explore an expansion of inner sensory experience that can grow us in the external world.
All of this is involved in "firing on more burners". As mentioned before expanding our awareness into new areas including artistic, scientific, physical, technological and emotional realms feeds new thought patterns and personas that turn on more and more existential burners. As thought produces action, the world is changed and created by opening the tap of infinite thought to express itself to the quantity and degree of open lines to each burner. Stopping up a burner produces a weak flame. Open the tap wide and the fire will blaze.
I am not a Jean Houston fan, follower or disciple but I have come to respect many of her ideas. Being able to have the live experience certainly added extra color and dimension to my concepts of human potential and expression that I can further synthesize into my continued search for truth.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Bringing New Mind to Bear on Social Change
I was fortunate to attend a lecture by Jean Houston tonight. It was a very inspiring and productive experience. She is an awesome speaker and has an incredible biography of accomplishment and purpose. She has trained, worked with and known a who's who of great people from the 20th century including Albert Einstein, Margaret Mead, Linus Pauling, Bill Clinton, Jonas Salk, Dalai Llama, Tielhard de Chardin and many others. She had numerous stories about many of these people and others. But that was not the focus of the communication.
She has created and works in a medium known as social artistry. This is essentially the use of ritual to enhance knowing in individuals in order that they might a more creative participant in the world. She impels us to claim the joys and responsibilities of being full world citizens as we live through the intense changes unfolding on the planet today. She uses and develops these techniques in training the very top leaders in industry, government, education, health and spirituality in numerous countries and cultures.
One of her current projects is training leaders at the United Nations. She has counseled and taught leadership to presidents and other world leaders. She believes that we are in a period of profound change unlike anything humanity has ever experienced and we need the tools of higher consciousness and creativity to move forward through the changes to co-create the future.
I was also fortunate enough to help her out. At one point before starting the experiential portion of the program, she asked if anyone in the audience could play piano. Several folks raised their hands. Then she asked how many could play spontaneously. All hands went down except mine. So, I volunteered myself to improvise accompaniment to two of the exercises she did with the attendees. It was a blast as I had not done anything like that in a long time. Plus, it was great to participate with a person of her enlightenment and caliber.
Great fun on a stormy night....
She has created and works in a medium known as social artistry. This is essentially the use of ritual to enhance knowing in individuals in order that they might a more creative participant in the world. She impels us to claim the joys and responsibilities of being full world citizens as we live through the intense changes unfolding on the planet today. She uses and develops these techniques in training the very top leaders in industry, government, education, health and spirituality in numerous countries and cultures.
One of her current projects is training leaders at the United Nations. She has counseled and taught leadership to presidents and other world leaders. She believes that we are in a period of profound change unlike anything humanity has ever experienced and we need the tools of higher consciousness and creativity to move forward through the changes to co-create the future.
I was also fortunate enough to help her out. At one point before starting the experiential portion of the program, she asked if anyone in the audience could play piano. Several folks raised their hands. Then she asked how many could play spontaneously. All hands went down except mine. So, I volunteered myself to improvise accompaniment to two of the exercises she did with the attendees. It was a blast as I had not done anything like that in a long time. Plus, it was great to participate with a person of her enlightenment and caliber.
Great fun on a stormy night....
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Mambo Cafe Review
Earlier this year I spent several weeks taking Salsa dance lessons at Sandega Dance Studio, getting to a low intermediate level (according to their class organizations). During those weeks I went to several Saturday night "socials" that were presented by the studio. These were very enjoyable BYOB affairs for $10 per person. Typically, we'd bring a bottle of wine, find a table and dance for a couple of hours to good quality salsa, meringue and mambo music provided by the DJ. A wide age range of people attended ranging from early teens to 60-ish. The socials provided a very wholesome smoke-free environment for practicing Latin dance styles, meeting new people and getting experience with a variety of dance partners.
Last night we tried the Mambo Cafe in downtown Dallas. We expected a similar kind of experience except in a nightclub setting. The Mambo also features a live Latin band for two sets, alternated with DJ. The attraction of dancing to live music was a big selling point.
We arrived around 9 pm to an almost empty house. We found a great seat and enjoyed the spacious, semi-luxurious surroundings for a few minutes. Shortly after the teacher for the 9-10pm salsa lessons asked if we wanted to partipate in the lessons. We declined since we already know enough to be dangerous.
It didn't take long for people to start trickling in. By 10pm the entire place was packed. The DJ started around 10 with a couple of salsa tunes that we danced. After that the remainder of the set was long-running meringue tunes that were very repetitious and loud coupled with the music videos that accompanied the selections. However, these songs definitely attracted the most people to the dance floor.
When the live set started at 11pm, the energy level jumped up for me. First, the selections were shorter than the DJ had been playing, which allows you to dance for a while and alternate dancing on every other tune. Also, most of the selections were salsa rather than meringue. I find salsa infinitely more interesting and fun to dance due to the rich complexity of rhythm and variation in harmonic and melodic structure. So, this was a very fun dance set.
Unfortunately, once the live set was over the DJ set began with extremely loud (distorted bass) mind-numbing music that sounded like a cross between trance music, latin and the worst in repetitious club music complete with distorted, blurry and fast-moving video. There was a huge surge of younger people to the dance floor. Then, for the next hour, shoulder to shoulder, they bounced up and down to noise that seems to be put together strictly for the purpose of blotting out all possible consciousness. I guess combing large amounts of alcohol with this kind of production produces some sort of narcotic effect.
We considered leaving, but kept our stamina trying to hold out for the next live Latin set. Unfortunately by the time the live set came around, our brains were so numb from the incessant cell-killing noise from the past hour that we only danced a couple of salsas before departing.
So, if you want several hours of constructive Latin dance, Mambo Cafe is not the place to go. There is too much other extra baggage to tolerate. IMO, this was a net negative experience coming from the perspective of someone who wanted to practice Salsa skills for 2-3 hours.
Last night we tried the Mambo Cafe in downtown Dallas. We expected a similar kind of experience except in a nightclub setting. The Mambo also features a live Latin band for two sets, alternated with DJ. The attraction of dancing to live music was a big selling point.
We arrived around 9 pm to an almost empty house. We found a great seat and enjoyed the spacious, semi-luxurious surroundings for a few minutes. Shortly after the teacher for the 9-10pm salsa lessons asked if we wanted to partipate in the lessons. We declined since we already know enough to be dangerous.
It didn't take long for people to start trickling in. By 10pm the entire place was packed. The DJ started around 10 with a couple of salsa tunes that we danced. After that the remainder of the set was long-running meringue tunes that were very repetitious and loud coupled with the music videos that accompanied the selections. However, these songs definitely attracted the most people to the dance floor.
When the live set started at 11pm, the energy level jumped up for me. First, the selections were shorter than the DJ had been playing, which allows you to dance for a while and alternate dancing on every other tune. Also, most of the selections were salsa rather than meringue. I find salsa infinitely more interesting and fun to dance due to the rich complexity of rhythm and variation in harmonic and melodic structure. So, this was a very fun dance set.
Unfortunately, once the live set was over the DJ set began with extremely loud (distorted bass) mind-numbing music that sounded like a cross between trance music, latin and the worst in repetitious club music complete with distorted, blurry and fast-moving video. There was a huge surge of younger people to the dance floor. Then, for the next hour, shoulder to shoulder, they bounced up and down to noise that seems to be put together strictly for the purpose of blotting out all possible consciousness. I guess combing large amounts of alcohol with this kind of production produces some sort of narcotic effect.
We considered leaving, but kept our stamina trying to hold out for the next live Latin set. Unfortunately by the time the live set came around, our brains were so numb from the incessant cell-killing noise from the past hour that we only danced a couple of salsas before departing.
So, if you want several hours of constructive Latin dance, Mambo Cafe is not the place to go. There is too much other extra baggage to tolerate. IMO, this was a net negative experience coming from the perspective of someone who wanted to practice Salsa skills for 2-3 hours.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Core Values
I read an article on The Art of Manliness web site a couple of weeks ago that got me thinking about this. As we all do, from time to time I do a little introspection about what is really important in life. This helps us decide if we are living the life we should be living. If not, some course corrections need to happen. For the parts that seem to be working, how can we do it more and better.
At any rate, this article was "How to be a Better Man in 30 days". I have not embarked on a 30 day boot camp or anything, but there are lots of good suggestions in that list. The only one I took any action on was the first one, Define your Core Values. All I had to do was write down 5 core values, no more, no less. There was even a list of 40 or so to choose from. I liked choosing from the list because it included a wide range and helped constrain the exercise. The rule was to choose exactly 5, so some hard decisions were necessary. Most or all of the ones on the list are important to me.
So, I finally whittled it down to these 5:
At any rate, this article was "How to be a Better Man in 30 days". I have not embarked on a 30 day boot camp or anything, but there are lots of good suggestions in that list. The only one I took any action on was the first one, Define your Core Values. All I had to do was write down 5 core values, no more, no less. There was even a list of 40 or so to choose from. I liked choosing from the list because it included a wide range and helped constrain the exercise. The rule was to choose exactly 5, so some hard decisions were necessary. Most or all of the ones on the list are important to me.
So, I finally whittled it down to these 5:
- Health - maintaining a strong mind and body
- Wisdom - pursuing knowledge, experience and introspecting/synthesizing into wisdom
- Financial Stability - maintaining independence
- Integrity - consistency and wholeness of belief and actions
- Personal Relationships - includes family, friends, professional and spiritual
These are not listed in order of priority as choosing only 5 was hard enough. I plan to keep these values and the others on the list as a backlog of things to blog about when I draw a blank. Who knows, further thought and writing might change my list of 5 even though just living up to each one of those is more than a full time job.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Up Early
One of my recent projects has been to get up earlier than usual. My desire to do this was first motivated by my frustration that I was not able to maintain a daily consistency of gym workouts if I waited until the evening. I also remembered from many years ago that when I do workout early in the morning before work, I have much more energy, focus, motivation and engagement throughout the day. Not to mention higher confidence and a more positive mood. So, I started by getting up a half hour to 1 hour earlier than needed to simply get out of bed, shower and head to work.
The result of this change was significant. The benefits mentioned above were immediately noticeable. But I was still frustrated that by the time I get home in the evening, do dinner and catch up on the day's news and events, I did not have enough time or concentration to pursue some things. This realization, coupled with a strong desire to "get centered and focused" before starting the day led to moving my goal of getting up early to 5:00 am.
I've been working on this for about 3 weeks now and have been successful at getting up between 5:30 and 6:00 about 3 mornings per week. On the days I do this, I am much more productive. By the time I get to work, I am fully energized and focused for the day. My goal now is to increase the number of days that I get up earlier and continue moving the time back to as early as 5:00 am. The challenge here is getting enough sleep, but I have confidence this will happen.
The routine that seems to be jelling is:
The result of this change was significant. The benefits mentioned above were immediately noticeable. But I was still frustrated that by the time I get home in the evening, do dinner and catch up on the day's news and events, I did not have enough time or concentration to pursue some things. This realization, coupled with a strong desire to "get centered and focused" before starting the day led to moving my goal of getting up early to 5:00 am.
I've been working on this for about 3 weeks now and have been successful at getting up between 5:30 and 6:00 about 3 mornings per week. On the days I do this, I am much more productive. By the time I get to work, I am fully energized and focused for the day. My goal now is to increase the number of days that I get up earlier and continue moving the time back to as early as 5:00 am. The challenge here is getting enough sleep, but I have confidence this will happen.
The routine that seems to be jelling is:
- Get up
- Make coffee
- Meditate
- Journal
- Read
- Write
- Workout
- Breakfast
- Get ready for work
- Play a couple of jazz tunes on piano
All this is done by 8:00, when I head to work, so you can see why I need the 3 hours. I can definitely say it is making a positive impact on my productivity, effectiveness and life in general. I recommend quality morning time for anyone who can do it. Well, gotta go, time to workout :-)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Beatles at CSL
In my last post, I explored ideas about music inspired by a recent book. Pretty soon after I finished the book and the blog, I went to a concert at the Center for Spiritual Living that was a Beatles tribute. Michael Gott has been the musical director there for 17 years and is an excellent singer/songwriter/pianist in his own right. He was joined by Robin Hackett on vocals and a guitar player to create a unique interpretation of Beatles songs for a 2 hour concert.
One testament to the Universal appeal of the songs is the power they embody in so many different interpretations. This was especially true at the Sunday evening concert where many of the songs were slowed down, allowing the essence to become appreciated. One example was "Help" which was played as a duet with piano accompaniment at a moderately slow tempo rather than the fast rock-n-roll version recorded by the Beatles. Other memorable songs from that evening include Imagine, Yesterday, With a Little Help from my Friends, Because, Across the Universe and I Want to Hold Your Hand.
Since I grew up with this music, lots of memories that had long been split up in the various bit buckets of my mind came together to create a heighted sense of enjoyment and sensitivity to the music. Time stopped for a couple of hours as I enjoyed the classic melodies, harmonies and rhythms that spoke to the era of their composition as well as "across the universe" of time to September of 2009.
For the record, my favorite Beatles albums are: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road, Magical Mystery Tour.
One testament to the Universal appeal of the songs is the power they embody in so many different interpretations. This was especially true at the Sunday evening concert where many of the songs were slowed down, allowing the essence to become appreciated. One example was "Help" which was played as a duet with piano accompaniment at a moderately slow tempo rather than the fast rock-n-roll version recorded by the Beatles. Other memorable songs from that evening include Imagine, Yesterday, With a Little Help from my Friends, Because, Across the Universe and I Want to Hold Your Hand.
Since I grew up with this music, lots of memories that had long been split up in the various bit buckets of my mind came together to create a heighted sense of enjoyment and sensitivity to the music. Time stopped for a couple of hours as I enjoyed the classic melodies, harmonies and rhythms that spoke to the era of their composition as well as "across the universe" of time to September of 2009.
For the record, my favorite Beatles albums are: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road, Magical Mystery Tour.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Music
Why is music so important to us? Why does it move us so deeply? Why do we spend a lot of money to buy it, hear it live and on instruments to play it? Why can some particular types of music lift our spirits and intellect, while other types leave us cold, disgusted or numb? And how can the same type of music have one effect on one culture or individual, while on another it has the direct opposite effect?
These are all interesting questions. Combining neuroscience with music research has unlocked some of the secrets of how the brain reacts and perceives music. Study of evolutionary history and psychology gives clues to how and why it developed in the first place.
Music appears to stimulate many separate portions of the brain all at once. Some neuroscience studies have shown that accomplished musicians have a much larger number of connections in the cerebullum. Rhythm appears to stimulate more primitive and ancient portions of the brain whereas melody and tonality tend to stimulate more cognitive portions of the brain.
In the musical performer even more areas are stimulated to account for the manual dexterity needed to play an instrument. Of course, the performer is also listening to the music being played as well as anticipating upcoming phrases at mostly a subconscious level. Improvisational music adds yet another generative dimension as music is being composed on the spot. So, the anticipation is of that which has not yet been conceived, perhaps other than a general target of where the current phrase is going or some kind of loose connection to what was recently played.
One theory of how music came to be proposes that it was a parasite on the development of language. From this perspective, language was an evolutionary adaptation and music shared some of the same characteristics of language development including the ability to vocalize complex sounds and variations. Another common characteristic between language and music is the creation of a mental framework that facilitates understanding of a particular culture's language or music. Foreign musical traditions are more difficult to understand beyond an intellectual level because of the lack of framework that is missing from early childhood development. Language is similar and broad exposure to language or music at an early age increases the likelihood of fluency in a broader range of either.
Hearing music can stimulate past memories long dormant or create new abstract destinations in the mind. Stimulation of past memories is intriguing from the perspective of how memories are stored. Oversimplified, memories are broken into many different bits throughout the brain's neural network. When a memory is stimulated, the memory is generated by an "immediate" construction of the memory in its entirety.
Using a computer analogy, suppose a memory consists of 100 bytes of data. This data is broken into 800 bits and "held" as neural energy in various parts of the brain. The memory stimulation results in the 800 bits being immediately reconstructed into the "original". The recollection must allowing for the usual time distortion. IOW every time a memory is recalled, it is changed to some degree. The act of recalling it changes it in some way. This is eerily similar to the way Quantum Physics shows that observation of a physical "event" changes that event - we create our Reality every nanosecond. But, I digress.
Music has always been a significant part of my life and will always continue to be so. There is so much more to say about the historical, neurological, psychological and spiritual realms. Maybe in future posts.
Check out the book, "This is your Brain on Music" by Daniel J. Levithin for much more detail.
These are all interesting questions. Combining neuroscience with music research has unlocked some of the secrets of how the brain reacts and perceives music. Study of evolutionary history and psychology gives clues to how and why it developed in the first place.
Music appears to stimulate many separate portions of the brain all at once. Some neuroscience studies have shown that accomplished musicians have a much larger number of connections in the cerebullum. Rhythm appears to stimulate more primitive and ancient portions of the brain whereas melody and tonality tend to stimulate more cognitive portions of the brain.
In the musical performer even more areas are stimulated to account for the manual dexterity needed to play an instrument. Of course, the performer is also listening to the music being played as well as anticipating upcoming phrases at mostly a subconscious level. Improvisational music adds yet another generative dimension as music is being composed on the spot. So, the anticipation is of that which has not yet been conceived, perhaps other than a general target of where the current phrase is going or some kind of loose connection to what was recently played.
One theory of how music came to be proposes that it was a parasite on the development of language. From this perspective, language was an evolutionary adaptation and music shared some of the same characteristics of language development including the ability to vocalize complex sounds and variations. Another common characteristic between language and music is the creation of a mental framework that facilitates understanding of a particular culture's language or music. Foreign musical traditions are more difficult to understand beyond an intellectual level because of the lack of framework that is missing from early childhood development. Language is similar and broad exposure to language or music at an early age increases the likelihood of fluency in a broader range of either.
Hearing music can stimulate past memories long dormant or create new abstract destinations in the mind. Stimulation of past memories is intriguing from the perspective of how memories are stored. Oversimplified, memories are broken into many different bits throughout the brain's neural network. When a memory is stimulated, the memory is generated by an "immediate" construction of the memory in its entirety.
Using a computer analogy, suppose a memory consists of 100 bytes of data. This data is broken into 800 bits and "held" as neural energy in various parts of the brain. The memory stimulation results in the 800 bits being immediately reconstructed into the "original". The recollection must allowing for the usual time distortion. IOW every time a memory is recalled, it is changed to some degree. The act of recalling it changes it in some way. This is eerily similar to the way Quantum Physics shows that observation of a physical "event" changes that event - we create our Reality every nanosecond. But, I digress.
Music has always been a significant part of my life and will always continue to be so. There is so much more to say about the historical, neurological, psychological and spiritual realms. Maybe in future posts.
Check out the book, "This is your Brain on Music" by Daniel J. Levithin for much more detail.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Agile Update and New Blog Discoveries
Another second Friday, another completed Iteration. This particular Iteration had a lot of carryover from the last one. Many stories were code complete but were not accepted by stakeholders due to lack of availabilty. A lot of those were accepted. Most of the stories that are required for the upcoming release are accepted or will be early Monday.
Next Iteration will be a "Qualification Iteration". This means that there will be little or no new features added during the next 2 weeks while we submit release candidate builds to Customer Support to run real-world tests. The goal is to have a real RC1 by Wednesday. We may also do a late night Wednesday or Thursday night and provide dinner to the Support group and Development to encourage a focused testing window of 2-3 hours so we can try to flush out regression defects sooner rather than later.
Our plan is to do Qual Iterations at the end of each release. A typical release cycle will be some number of normal scrum cycles where we accept a set of stories and defects. After all the feature-adding cycles we will have 1 or 2 Qual Iterations at the end of the cycle for a short Release Candidate period. External customer participation will be welcome as well to increase real-world testing.
On another topic, I have discovered 2 or 3 new blog sites that I am now following. These are great personal development blog sites that provide lots of positive thought-provoking inspiration to "be" better. We all want to "be" better, right? The better we "be" the better we "do". Take care of the "being" and the "doing" will follow.
First up is The Art of Manliness. This blog is an entertaining and informative resource with articles, blogs, and advice on how to be a better man. Even though it's primarily for men, there is a lot of good general advice for better "being". Man up!
Next is, Change Your Life. This is a more general recording of someone's personal journey toward self improvement. Again, lots of great thoughts and insights.
Finally, although I was not too impressed with the entire site, the Fifty Habits of Successful People was a good read. How many of these do you do? How many of them do you need to think about doing? Read them often.
I thought these sites were very good uses for blog sites. Spreading positive thinking is always good. We have enough negativity and fear already. We need more positivity, faith, courage and confidence.
Next Iteration will be a "Qualification Iteration". This means that there will be little or no new features added during the next 2 weeks while we submit release candidate builds to Customer Support to run real-world tests. The goal is to have a real RC1 by Wednesday. We may also do a late night Wednesday or Thursday night and provide dinner to the Support group and Development to encourage a focused testing window of 2-3 hours so we can try to flush out regression defects sooner rather than later.
Our plan is to do Qual Iterations at the end of each release. A typical release cycle will be some number of normal scrum cycles where we accept a set of stories and defects. After all the feature-adding cycles we will have 1 or 2 Qual Iterations at the end of the cycle for a short Release Candidate period. External customer participation will be welcome as well to increase real-world testing.
On another topic, I have discovered 2 or 3 new blog sites that I am now following. These are great personal development blog sites that provide lots of positive thought-provoking inspiration to "be" better. We all want to "be" better, right? The better we "be" the better we "do". Take care of the "being" and the "doing" will follow.
First up is The Art of Manliness. This blog is an entertaining and informative resource with articles, blogs, and advice on how to be a better man. Even though it's primarily for men, there is a lot of good general advice for better "being". Man up!
Next is, Change Your Life. This is a more general recording of someone's personal journey toward self improvement. Again, lots of great thoughts and insights.
Finally, although I was not too impressed with the entire site, the Fifty Habits of Successful People was a good read. How many of these do you do? How many of them do you need to think about doing? Read them often.
I thought these sites were very good uses for blog sites. Spreading positive thinking is always good. We have enough negativity and fear already. We need more positivity, faith, courage and confidence.
Fear
Fear has been the topic of many books and essays. It is viewed in most enlightened theological viewpoints as being in direct contrast to Faith. Fear is an ingrained emotion and instinct that we have inherited from our pre-historic ancestors. It is necessary to survival. Without it we'd always take unnecessary risks and have no caution when we should be. However, fear can sometimes control our lives in conscious as well as unconscious ways. It can cause us to behave very irrationally and create a life that is limited and paranoid.
Fear can be focused on many different targets. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the unfamiliar. Fear of death. Fear of life. Fear of authority. Fear of losing. Fear of winning. The list goes on and on. Fear controls us when we are not aware it is doing so. We control Fear when we are aware of it and then let our reason enter the arena to rationally check and analyze the source of the Fear. The book "The Science of Fear" refers to Gut and Head to describe how fear arises as an emotional reaction and reason is need to check Gut lest the Fear turn into a mushroom cloud overshadowing more balanced actions.
One response to Fear is to step back and look at what is actually known about the situation. Here, statistics can be very beneficial. Getting and knowing good statistical information can be difficult in our culture where selling Fear is more profitable than selling Faith. Saturation with media is a big problem when statements are made without being backed up or compared to relative statistics or information. Many times, once something is stated by a public figure, it takes on the stature of a fact, no matter how weak the support for the position might be.
Once whatever is responsible for the Fear is recognized and understood as some level of risk, Faith can drive through the Fear with strong belief in a positive outcome. We should move forward in Faith and Confidence, knowing that the outcome we desire will prevail and take actions that support progress toward positive ends that move forward.
Fear can be focused on many different targets. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the unfamiliar. Fear of death. Fear of life. Fear of authority. Fear of losing. Fear of winning. The list goes on and on. Fear controls us when we are not aware it is doing so. We control Fear when we are aware of it and then let our reason enter the arena to rationally check and analyze the source of the Fear. The book "The Science of Fear" refers to Gut and Head to describe how fear arises as an emotional reaction and reason is need to check Gut lest the Fear turn into a mushroom cloud overshadowing more balanced actions.
One response to Fear is to step back and look at what is actually known about the situation. Here, statistics can be very beneficial. Getting and knowing good statistical information can be difficult in our culture where selling Fear is more profitable than selling Faith. Saturation with media is a big problem when statements are made without being backed up or compared to relative statistics or information. Many times, once something is stated by a public figure, it takes on the stature of a fact, no matter how weak the support for the position might be.
Once whatever is responsible for the Fear is recognized and understood as some level of risk, Faith can drive through the Fear with strong belief in a positive outcome. We should move forward in Faith and Confidence, knowing that the outcome we desire will prevail and take actions that support progress toward positive ends that move forward.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Agile Update
We completed our third Agile iteration last week. Each iteration we've done has been a bit different from the other. Our first goal is to simply learn to iterate. It sounds so simple, right? Just agree on a set of work to try to complete within a 2 week span and get on with it. For the most part, we have been successful at a basic level. Each iteration has started on a Monday and ended the following Friday. However, some observations are worth mentioning.
First, the background of the team was minimally controlled anarchy. It was an approach that has taken them very far. For most of the past history the team has been very small. We have grown the team by 2 or 3 new members over the last several months. The total is 9 developers, 2 test engineers and 1 technical writer. It is a good-size team for experimenting with Agile.
Before starting the first iteration we had trialed and adopted Rally as an Agile project management tool. Having this tool in place made it easier in many respects to be more successful that if we had not done that. For one thing, it allows us to be a "little" Agile in that we actually work more like an iterative development team with very short iterations than a true Scrum or XP approach. Adopting one or both of those approaches would have been a pretty radical culture shift for the team.
The first iteration felt a little frazzled. Some team members were stressed about getting everything done in 2 weeks, even though we had carefully scoped the work to fit. The additional urgency around actually committing to being done at the end of two weeks added energy to the team. Also, there were lots of questions about how to handle process-related things that came up. We learned a lot about Rally and how to use it to enable more efficient communication paths.
The second iteration felt a little more natural. We accepted a very high percentage of the work we had set out to accomplish. There were many less questions along the way and we adapted some of the practices we tried in the first iteration to be more natural in the second.
The third iteration was completely different. First, we started with much more committed work. We ended up only accepting about 45% of the work by the end of the iteration. That was good in that we learned that we can push work if it is not done and not feel too badly about it. Our average productivity over the 3 iterations was respectable. Pushing so much work into the next iteration renewed a commitment toward really being "done" with a story and not just chopping it up to make it fit within an iteration.
We had our first retrospective this past Monday at the beginning of the fourth iteration. The comments from the team were focused on how we get better at doing iterations. One common theme was the desire to do better at transtioning from one iteration to the next. Suggestions for a demo/planning day at the end of the iteration and more time discussing the stories at the start of an iteration were voiced. This will probably be the one thing we work on in this current iteration.
At this point our focus is on using iterations as a synchronization mechanism. We are not having daily standups (although we do send daily email status reports to the entire team with the same format as Agile standups). We do not do a good job of grooming the backlog and having stories fleshed out before we start the iteration. We are using an adjustment in "points estimation" that couples us a little too closely to concrete ideal time estimates. We also have to react to changes mid-iteration due to customer demands or whims within the company.
These are all things that need to be addressed over time if we are successful at getting real buy-in from other departments in the company.
First, the background of the team was minimally controlled anarchy. It was an approach that has taken them very far. For most of the past history the team has been very small. We have grown the team by 2 or 3 new members over the last several months. The total is 9 developers, 2 test engineers and 1 technical writer. It is a good-size team for experimenting with Agile.
Before starting the first iteration we had trialed and adopted Rally as an Agile project management tool. Having this tool in place made it easier in many respects to be more successful that if we had not done that. For one thing, it allows us to be a "little" Agile in that we actually work more like an iterative development team with very short iterations than a true Scrum or XP approach. Adopting one or both of those approaches would have been a pretty radical culture shift for the team.
The first iteration felt a little frazzled. Some team members were stressed about getting everything done in 2 weeks, even though we had carefully scoped the work to fit. The additional urgency around actually committing to being done at the end of two weeks added energy to the team. Also, there were lots of questions about how to handle process-related things that came up. We learned a lot about Rally and how to use it to enable more efficient communication paths.
The second iteration felt a little more natural. We accepted a very high percentage of the work we had set out to accomplish. There were many less questions along the way and we adapted some of the practices we tried in the first iteration to be more natural in the second.
The third iteration was completely different. First, we started with much more committed work. We ended up only accepting about 45% of the work by the end of the iteration. That was good in that we learned that we can push work if it is not done and not feel too badly about it. Our average productivity over the 3 iterations was respectable. Pushing so much work into the next iteration renewed a commitment toward really being "done" with a story and not just chopping it up to make it fit within an iteration.
We had our first retrospective this past Monday at the beginning of the fourth iteration. The comments from the team were focused on how we get better at doing iterations. One common theme was the desire to do better at transtioning from one iteration to the next. Suggestions for a demo/planning day at the end of the iteration and more time discussing the stories at the start of an iteration were voiced. This will probably be the one thing we work on in this current iteration.
At this point our focus is on using iterations as a synchronization mechanism. We are not having daily standups (although we do send daily email status reports to the entire team with the same format as Agile standups). We do not do a good job of grooming the backlog and having stories fleshed out before we start the iteration. We are using an adjustment in "points estimation" that couples us a little too closely to concrete ideal time estimates. We also have to react to changes mid-iteration due to customer demands or whims within the company.
These are all things that need to be addressed over time if we are successful at getting real buy-in from other departments in the company.
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