SidesWays Blog

Ran across a couple of presentations that are relevant to building team culture, especially for virtual work groups. The first is a keynote by Jim McCarthy . I've been a long-term fan as he wrote a great book. See Pre-Agile Ideas: Jim McCarthy Videos for more. Here is the link to his keynote: Culture Hacking http://www.infoq.com/presentations/culture-hacking-singapore Some interesting quotes (he's very quotable) and take-aways: Get women involved! Technical teams lack diversity. "I'm not a real historian, but I like stories from history" "great editorial wall of China" "everything you do should be art" "team = product" Feeilings are "mad, sad, glad, afraid" "any process will work with presence" Book: Flow (P.S.) The other presentation that is full of tips for running virtual teams based on experience at InfoQ itself: Culture and Happiness in Virtual Teams http://www.infoq.com/presentations/cult

Great presentation (30 minutes) on why multitasking is poor for productivity and how personal Kanban (and Kanban in general) works. There is a great short exercise at the beginning of the video that illustrates the cost of context switching. The Evils of Multi-tasking and How Personal Kanban Can Help You (by Sandy Mamoli) http://www.infoq.com/presentations/multi-tasking-personal-kanban Kanban in a nutshell: 1) visualize your work flow, 2) limit your WIP I'm experimenting with a personal Kanban board made using a 30" x 20" project board: The Pomodoro Technique is also discussed ( http://pomodorotechnique.com/ ). I'm experimenting with a Pomodoro App on my iPhone