This wee animated movie made by Harvard Scientists shows us what mitochondria look like when they’re hard at work producing energy inside your body (and your dog’s body, and maybe your dogsbody if you’re old-fashioned about work). It is as thrilling a glimpse into an unknown universe as Avatar–all in just over 2 minutes.
Hat Tip: io9, my favorite sci-fi/futurist blog. More links to related stuff there.
Chris, with the Raven-Whale-Eagle team
Chris tweeted a picture of a totem pole this weekend, pointing out (via a link to Wikipedia) that the term “Low person on the totem pole” is a bit misguided–the figures on a totem pole are not, in fact, arranged hierarchically. Wikipedia also points out that the figures aren’t “idols” either. Both concepts, that of hierarchy and that of idol-worship, are but assumptions we bring to what we see.
This got me thinking: if we naturally assume that anything arranged vertically is a hierarchy, and that any figure is an “idol,” what other assumptions are we bringing to the teams we work in?
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Our Conference Room
Agile Learning Labs started out as a home office, but as we’ve grown, I’d have to say that it has evolved into what I can only call an office home. Having started out with Chris and I occupying a two-desk office in what used to be a den, our workspace has now taken over the entire downstairs of the house, and we have several delightful people who join us here every day (some in person, some via web cam). I’m the resident interior designer, and when I first started laying out our expanded workspace, I envisioned a sea of desks and conference tables. But then during one of our company retrospectives, which we had been holding in our living room, I noticed how well everyone responded to getting to walk away from desks, phones and computers and sit in comfy armchairs while having a lively conversation in a humanistic setting, the way people do when they are just socializing. So I polled everyone, and it was unanimous: the sea of desks could take over the dining room, and any other available space, but the living room was a vital part of our office, the place for reflection and communication, and it would stay.
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Last night we held a free 2 hour workshop led by David Parker, executive director of the OpenAgile Institute, in which he explained the essence of OpenAgile, one of the newer agile methodologies. I’ll try to summarize what I took away from the evening.
OpenAgile is an open source methodology, meaning that anyone can participate in the process of creating and evolving it. This itself strikes me as a particularly “agile” way of building a methodology, one that embraces the very notion of continuous improvement based on the actual experiences of the people using it.
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In an episode of NetObjectives’ Lean-Agile Straight Talk podcast called Going Beyond Scrum, Shalloway lists Steve’s Team Estimation Game as one of “the big three quick improvements” a team can make. He recounts teaching the technique to a team he was coaching and immediately saving them four hours. Have a listen.
If you want to learn the game yourself, you can contact us about getting Steve or Chris in to teach the game in a brown bag session for your team, or as an un-boring, interactive presentation for your user group.
We are a bit enamored of swag over here at Agile Learning Labs. Witness our latest effort, this adorable 3″ Scrum Master button you can wear on your conference tee or use to decorate your cubicle scrum room.
The only way to get one is to attend one of our trainings, public or private. If you are dying to get your mits on one of these puppies in time for the holidays, sign up for our December 4-5 Certified Scrum Master training with Chris Sims and Jeff Mckenna, and you can have it all–Scrum Alliance certification and your very own piece of Agile Learning Labs bling!
As a writer and editor, I’m acutely aware of the importance of language and metaphor in framing our experience. It has long been my opinion that our business cultures–and that includes software–have been profoundly affected (dare I say, infected?) by sports and combat metaphorage. We have teams, team players and coaches. We keep score and touch base. We have strategies, tactics and positions, and we can “win” things like market share.
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Chris and Jeff will be leading another weekend Certified ScrumMaster class on September 11-12, and if you register before August 21, you can get you some earlybird pricing. And, to mix species metaphors, if you can muster being an eager beaver in addition to an early bird, and get yourself signed up for our newsletter before the next one goes out bright and early Wednesday morning (that’s the 11th), you can snag yourself a discount code for a significant additional discount.
Due to popular demand, we’re also working on scheduling a repeat of our popular Certified Scrum Product Owner class, so give us a shout if you’re interested in announcements for that class, too.
A string of training opportunities has Chris headed for the East Coast next week. Never one to sit alone in a hotel bar in the evening listening to guys who don’t look like George Clooney and girls who don’t look like Vera Farmiga compare frequent flier privileges, Chris will be speaking at a couple of local user groups during his trip, so if you’re on the East Coast, this is your chance to experience Agility California-style.
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Chris will be leading off the Agile Manager’s Support Group in San Mateo with a presentation on the theme, “Help! Our user stories are too big!” As usual, there will be a raffle and free pizza, and as a special bonus, you’ll get to take home a copy of our Agile Dictionary sampler, a booklet containing highlights from the new website.
Meanwhile, Steve Bockman and Rob Myers will be presenting on the theme, “Making Pair Programming and TDD Fun and Effective” at the San Francisco .NET Developers User Group‘s monthly meetup, which will be held at Microsoft’s Market Street offices.
Which one are you going to? Life’s all about making tough choices, isn’t it?