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...

I've been a fan of Jim McCarthy since I heard a recorded session of his talk at one of the Microsoft developer conferences back in the 90s. The thoughts represented are echoed in Agile practices today. There is a nice set of short videos at: http://www.mccarthyshow.com/the-23-rules-of-thumb/ which are also available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/McCarthyShow#g/u He also has a recent (Dec 2013) keynote at InfoQ: Culture Hacking http://www.infoq.com/presentations/culture-hacking-singapore Some my selected favorites: Rule 1 - Don't know what you don't know Rule 4 - Don't go dark Rule 5 - Use feature teams Rule 6 - Use Zero Defect Milestones Rule 7 - Don't flip the bozo bit Rule 8 - Beware of a guy in a room Rule 13 - If you build it, it will ship (daily build) Rule 23 - Get the team into ship mode