Values vs. strengths There is sometimes a conflict between a person's values and his or her strengths. What one does well – even very well and successfully – may not fit with one's value system. In that case, the work may not appear to be worth devoting one's lift to (or even a substantial portion thereof). Values are and should be the ultimate test. Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself valueswork
The mirror test In the early years of this century, the most highly respected diplomat of all the great powers was the german ambassador in London. He was clearly destined for great things...yet in 1906 he abruptly resigned rather than preside over a dinner given by the diplomatic corps for Edward VII. The king was a notorious womanizer and made it clear what kind of dinner he wanted. The ambassador is reported to have said, "I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave." This is the mirror test. Ethics requires that you ask yourself, What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning? Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself ethicsvalues
The receiving end At times it helps to rephrase an observation in line with a perspective from the receiving end of technology. When my colleagues in the field of cold-water engineering speak of "ice-infested waters", I am tempted to think of "rig-infested oceans". Language is a fine barometer of values and priorities. As such it deserves careful attention. Ursula M. Franklin, The Real World of Technology valuesenvironmentlanguage
If we didn’t live to work A Fragment by Charlie Warzel warzel.substack.com When you talk to people who reject the modern notion of a career, many of them say the same thing: They crave more balance, less precarity, and better pay. They also, crucially, want to work. What’s profound about the career rejectionists is that their guiding questions are simple. What if work didn’t make you feel awful? What would life be like if we didn’t live to work? What do workers and employers actually owe each other? What if we structured our work lives around a different idea of success? workvalues
Why we stopped breaking down stories into tasks An Article by Adam Silver adamsilver.io The Scrum process says to break down stories into tasks to make estimation easier, encourage collaboration and to be able to show more granular progress during a sprint. But after a few sprints, we decided to do the next sprint without creating tasks. As a result we drastically increased our velocity and never went back. Here I'll jot down some of the reasons we decided to do this: Breaking down stories into tasks is time consuming The tasks we came up with invariably would change as we worked on the stories Tasks are repetitive Tasks were often carried out in parallel Our estimates didn't improve It decluttered our task board It encouraged collaboration throughout the sprint While we started our process by following Scrum to the letter, we soon realised that breaking down stories into tasks was something that wasn’t worthwhile for us. In the end we realised that it was overplanning and poor use of our time. In the end we used that time to get on with the work and deliver at a significantly faster pace. Why We Don't Do Daily Stand-Ups at Supercede agile