Culture Hacking

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/culture-happiness-virtual-teams

Some interesting observations:

• "Everything in life is opt-in" (especially in a virtual team, but in general with knowledge workers)
• Especially in virtual teams, managers are really coaches
• Use of Yammer for social networking. Use is always optional -- just for organic team building.
• Use of 15five.com for 1-on-1s.
• Book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• Book: Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization
• Book: The Culture Game: Tools for the Agile Manager

Some questions from my experience:

Do daily or twice weekly (Tue/Thu) virtual standups work well when there are language barriers? Sometimes written communication is more effective.

Evils of Multi-tasking and Personal Kanban

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