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My job: help teams run more like Google and less like the IRS. That means lean, kanban, Agile, Scrum, XP, DevOps --whatever tool gets us from where we are to wh

My job: help teams run more like Google and less like the IRS. That means lean, kanban, Agile, Scrum, XP, DevOps --whatever tool gets us from where we are to where we want to go. I became interested in this a couple of years ago, and I've had the privilege since then of working with some LSP folks. My initial thoughts are that I like this a lot as a way for strangers to get to know one another. It seems really appropriate for team kickoffs, or in cases where the team is a team -- but in name only. When it works, it's a great way to get people to stop engineering the content of what they're saying and just emotionally open up. The few times I participated, I was very impressed with how quickly strangers came together as a working team. So my position currently is "play with it a bit and see where it might work or not". I don't see myself using this enough to get certified. I'm also not seeing how it works with already norm'ed teams, but maybe I'm missing something. Finally, like everything else in tech, there's a lot of hand-waving and over-promising. The hype cycle doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It just means you have to be careful about what's real and what's hype. Fascinating line of thought, though.

DKnoll 10y ago
My thoughts: 1. If you bring out LEGO while introducing yourself to a new team, you're going to seem less down to earth and approachable and more like a children's social worker. 2. I feel that hiding serious topics behind infantile representations is only going to jade your mature staff, and lead to a lack of trust as they would feel patronised and discouraged from straight and open conversation. 3. Not that I work in such an environment, but it seems like a lot of startups go for a light and playful atmosphere but end up with a very forced 'have fun... or ELSE' culture in a failed attempt to Google themselves. I feel the same failure often occurs with service industry companies trying to follow the Disney management style. Just my two cents. For the record ping pong tables and rubik's cubes rub me the wrong way also.

DKnoll 10y ago

My thoughts: 1. If you bring out LEGO while introducing yourself to a new team, you're going to seem less down to earth and approachable and more like a children's social worker. 2. I feel that hiding serious topics behind infantile representations is only going to jade your mature staff, and lead to a lack of trust as they would feel patronised and discouraged from straight and open conversation. 3. Not that I work in such an environment, but it seems like a lot of startups go for a light and playful atmosphere but end up with a very forced 'have fun... or ELSE' culture in a failed attempt to Google themselves. I feel the same failure often occurs with service industry companies trying to follow the Disney management style. Just my two cents. For the record ping pong tables and rubik's cubes rub me the wrong way also.