A smile always looks good

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to treat others, and how I want to be treated. I have learned recently, that when you’re in a bad mood, the worst thing to do is stomp and frown about. It makes you feel worse, and everyone else around you feel uncomfortable.

I have been making a conscious effort to be friendly when I don’ feel like it, and smile when I’m really pissed. And it has already made a difference in people’s reactions to me. When I smile, they smile back and we both feel good.

Another tip to make the day more enjoyable is to find people out there who you can wave at and chat with. People in the community. It makes you feel connected and I always love to wave, makes you feel important and popular. If you’re not sure how to go about it, go to a coffee shop or news stand at the same time a couple of times a week. You will be sure to run into people on your same schedule. Then, make a comment about the weather, the Olympics, anything really. And smile.

Next time you see them smile and say hello. If you want to, keep the conversation going. If not, that’s fine too. The chat/smile/wave relationship will develop. There is a man who works in the office near my office, and I always see him at the coffee shop on the corner. He says hi and smiles. Then, I started seeing him everywhere, and we would always say hi. We started chatting a bit more, and now, when I walk past his office, he knows I’m training for a marathon, and pumps both fists in the air and says “keep training!”

And that has to make you smile! : )

home is where you go to sleep

For all you overworked people out there,

Some tips to get you through the work day…

1. drink lots of water – you’ll get to spend the day in the restroom.

2. Always hold a pad of paper and a pen – it looks like you’re on your way to a meeting – when you’re really on the way to the bathroom…

3. don’t let the small stuff get you down. Now small is a relative term. I, for one, find small things enormously upsetting. Make a list of things that happen on a regular basis, that you are NOT going to let get to you anymore.

4. Always remember that work, and life, is what you make it. Your attitude determines your success – don’t slack off, but give yourself some space for error and some freebies…Don’t take it so seriously that you can’t just take your shoes off and wear a f@%$ you t-shirt sometimes.

5. don’t forget to breathe. roll your shoulders back and drop them down. and remember that you are not your job. its what YOU do, don’t let it do you…

Jeffrey and Napoleon

I like inspirational books. AKA self-help books, they are not necessarily help for something wrong, rather, they contain motivation and suggestions for looking at situations, at life, at yourself with a different lens, a new perspective.

Jeffrey Gitomer has a series of inspirational books on sales techniques and principles, but these books are good for anyone who deals with people in their professional life. In his books, Jeffrey discusses the basic principles of customer satisfaction and how to succeed in business. His books are short, sweet and to the point. They even have illustrations.

I subscribe to his weekly newsletter, Sales Caffeine. It’s surprisingly good, although Jeffrey’s article isn’t my personal favorite. My favorite part is often the most brief section – the Napoleon Hill section. Napoleon Hill was an early motivational thinker/ writer. He wrote the book, “Think and Grow Rich.” Here are a few  pearls of wisdom from Napoleon:

• f you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.
• If you’re not learning while you’re earning, you’re cheating yourself out of the better portion of your compensation.
• Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

He totally rocks, right? He did, after all, coin the term “master mind.”

Love in the livingroom (and bathroom

I never thought I would love an electrical appliance, but it’s happened, twice. The first time I laid eyes on my Sharp Aquos 26 in flat screen TV, I got tingly…. The black sleekness, the shine, clean lines and elegant stand… It makes my living room chic, and since my living room is really more of a hallway, it fits much better than my old clunky TV.

I am also in love with my flat iron. It’s a Chi from Global Beauty networks, inc. I love how it looks and how it performs. With my new haircut, it means the difference between mushroom head and hot.

If you don’t have one and you have hair, this is the one you need.

That said, go out and buy a Sharp TV and Chi flat iron. I promise, it will improve your life by at least 60 percent. (not sure what I mean by that, or how one measures this, but trust me, they’re great products!)

Scrumalicious

Scrum is a form of project management used mainly for software development, but can be applied to many different types of projects and industries. First off, let me say that my team does not practice authentic scrum. We are still in the limbo of trying to educate our clients and transition the project to scrum. As it stands today, we practice a mix of scrum and agile development, that works, but not as efficiently as it could.

 

I’m sure many of you are asking, what is it? Why the funny name?

The name scrum is a Rugby term, for a type of play that involves advanced teamwork, and physical proximity to make goal. To the Brits, the term also means hubbub, and confusion. In scrum project management, both of these meanings apply.

 

Scrum project management is designed to create “team ownership and management.” This team atmosphere means there will be discussion and communication between team members, which creates a louder, more dynamic development environment. This is encouraged, as it leads to team buy-in to the project and also increased team morale. It works best when the team members all sit near each other, so they can shout out questions, or when they are “blocked.”

 

One of the largest benefits of scrum is the increased project visibility. Every day there is a Morning Scrum, a quick meeting of all team member where they discuss what they completed yesterday, what they will be working on today, and if they are being blocked in any way. This is helpful because it allows everyone to see and hear the progress. It also brings everyone together to help work on a “blockage” or to jump in and help when a team member is almost done with their task, and another team member could use some help.

 

In my team, we have broken down all larger tasks into daily tasks. These tasks are assigned to individual team members. We have a board that we break into three sections, the backlog of tasks to be completed, In Progress, and done with development. (Ideally, we would have sections for in QA and then a “done done” section where all tasks that have been given a clean bill of health by QA, live. But, we are still developing, and we don’t have room on our board for that many columns.) Every morning during Morning Scrum, the team members go up to the board and move a task into the appropriate column. As they are moving their task(s) they discuss what they did, and mention any difficulties they encountered.

 

Later that day, I go up to the board and update our burn down chart. The burn down chart is the number of hours we have left on the project. This is plotted on a graph, next to the ideal rate of completion. This way, we can visually see where we are in relation to where we should be to complete the project on time. (This chart also visually shows any scope increase and how that affects the ideal rate of completion.)

 

One of the most outstanding benefits of scrum project management is the introduction of daily tasks, the visibility of remaining work in relation to remaining time, and the team buy-in and ownership of the project. Adopting these basic principles, again in part, we still do not practice “pure” scrum, has helped my team be on-target, working only during normal business hours. This is a great contrast to a release in which there were developers working 89 hours a week to meet our deadline, after we realized, too late, that we were way behind where we needed to be.

 

This is about as much as I will get into Scrum basics at this time. If you’re interested in learning more, there are some good books out there and classes by Ken Schwaber. There is also a good website, www.scrumalliance.org.