Energized Work | agile in action

System failure is inevitable so design for a fast recovery

Michael Richardson — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:22:44 PDT

So you're trying to build a reliable website or application. What do you need to think about?

Delight comes as a surprise in unexpected places

Simon Baker — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:00:00 PDT

The other day at the lab I was going about my 'morning constitutional' in the little boys room when I noticed the end of the toilet paper had been folded into a point. You know, just like in hotel room bathrooms. I realized I had a big smile on my face. This simple act by the office cleaner apparently made me happy. I think the fact it surprised me - I so wasn't expecting it - had an amplifying affect on my delight. If you haven't visited our lab, the last thing you'd expect to see was pointy toilet paper.

Help create business agility. Bake quality in

Simon Baker — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 17:00:00 PDT

Something common I’ve seen in effective agile teams is that testing has found a new home at the heart of development. I’m not referring to developers doing test-driven development to create code that is simpler in design and has testability engineered into it. I’m referring to testers working among developers doing continuous exploratory testing on vertical slices of stories still in progress.

Governance - Friend or Foe?

Simon Baker — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:17:44 PDT

We’re designing a session about governance in an agile world that will explore a contrarian view of what agile governance can be. It’s called: Governance – Friend or Foe? Basically…

70% Forum

Simon Baker — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 05:34:15 PST

Last night we hosted a talk by Kris and Suki at the Energized Work lab. The talk was called 230 Iteration Later and it was a dry run for the QCon conference in London this month.

Measuring purpose. Measuring customer delight

Simon Baker — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:00:00 PST

Power is shifting in the marketplace from the seller to the buyer. The rules of business are changing. Increasingly, customers know everything about the companies they buy from. Customers are taking charge and the new business bottom line is customer delight. It's no longer about pushing features at customers, it's about achieving the experiences customers desire. It's no longer about concept to cash, it's about how long it takes to go from concept to customer delight. It's no longer about output, it's about outcomes. Delighting customers is everyone's responsibility and whether you realize it or not, no matter what you do, you're working in customer services.

Stop pushing features and start delighting users

Simon Baker — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:54:57 PST

Focus on outcomes not output. Stop pushing features and start delighting users.

Lost without a goal

Simon Baker — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:00:00 PST

I can't operate effectively without some kind of goal. Let me clarify that. Without some kind of goal I am directionless. I'm easily distracted from any focus I might have started with by other things that crop up. I end up flitting from one thing to another, multitasking. I become anxious and frustrated. I lose my sense of priority. I end up working on things that don't add value and I create lots of work-in-progress. It only gets worse the longer I go without being able to check in against some goal. I suspect most people are like this.

Emotion creates the common language

Simon Baker — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:00:00 PST

The challenge when dealing with people from different backgrounds, with different experiences, qualifications, roles and domain knowledge is speaking the same language. When we face together a problem or opportunity, or given a certain need, we talk about what and how - what is the solution? How will we meet this need? We each think we see the same thing. We each believe we are talking about the same thing. When we talk about what it is it's often a case of the five blind guys and the elephant. Together we work hard to overcome our individual perspectives and structure a common language we think describes the what and the how.

Five sneaky ways to kill an initiative

Simon Baker — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:02:15 PST

1. Declare victory

Regardless of whether something has been successful or not the quickest way to kill it is to publicly declare it a success: “The initiative has been completely successful. The team responsible is no longer needed. The values have been internalized.”