HL Arledge

Axosoft OnTime adopts Scrum in a big way!

I have made much noise over the past year related to Axosoft OnTime's advertised support for Scrum and the product's shortcomings in this area. I have also explained how Decade Software has found ways to work around those shortcomings—but soon you will not have to.

Hamid Shojaee made this announcement today...

"OnTime is an extremely effective tool for managing Scrum projects, but I think we can do a far better job in future versions of OnTime. To make sure we fully embrace Scrum for future releases of OnTime, I had our entire team learn about Scrum. I also made sure we had multiple team members attend a two-day workshop with Ken Schwaber to become certified Scrum Masters.

Axosoft has embraced Scrum in a big way and we have made Scrum one of the main focuses of the next major release of OnTime. More generally, OnTime 2009’s focus will be on Project Visibility, which will help every single OnTime customer, not just those using Scrum. But for Scrum teams in particular, especially those hungry for some burn down charts and other visualization tools, you won’t be disappointed."

To be clear, I love OnTime. It has increased transparency throughout our company. My goal all along was merely to hold Axosoft accountable for their advertising promises and help them make OnTime even better.

It looks like that has happened.

Thank you, Axosoft. I am overjoyed at the news, and I am standing by to beta test if you need me.

3 Steps to Better Presentations

Tomorrow, I will be speaking to the Fresno County Office of Education on the subject of Scrum and Teamwork in general, reviewing the accomplishments Decade Software has made over the last few years.

This afternoon, I will be meeting with those who will present classes at the Decade Software User Training Conference next month.

...so I found Peter Stev's thoughts today quite timely.

"How will I know if the audience is getting what they need? Why didn’t I think of this sooner? The answer is simple: identify the users, figure out what they want to accomplish and why. Give the audience what they need to accomplish their most important goals. If you can identify and address their needs even before they are even aware of them, magic happens."

Check out his full post, and let me know what you think.

Decade supporters prepare to meet in Fresno

Those who read my posts directly from the blog page will note the new countdown clock on the left. The annual Decade Software User Training Conference is only 34 days away, and as you can see from these photos, we've come along way since those first conferences so many years ago.

Over the years, we've found that conference attendees are as responsible as conference presenters for the success of these events—before, during, and after the conference.

Here are a collection of tips for getting the most out of our next gathering.

Before

• Examine your pre-conference agenda and synopsis to make sure that the classes you have scheduled cover the topics you want, and reflect both your interests and your experience level.

• Consider the class or lab format. Some topics lend themselves well to large audiences. Some offer more hands-on training and personal interaction with the speaker and other attendees.

• Make a list of the things you expect to learn from the classes and questions you want answered.

• Identify your strengths and weaknesses in the areas to be discussed, and be prepared to share your own knowledge when asked to do so.

3 Big Questions from Patrick Lencioni

You may recall that Patrick Lencioni is one of my favorite authors.

He has a new book that everyone should read.

If you take time to read The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family, please let me know what you think.

21 tips for delivering killer presentations

As you know, I worked in radio for 15 years, and I've been speaking publicly since Jimmy Carter was president.

In fact, this month I will be speaking to developers at the Fresno County Office of Education on Scrum.

At the office this week, everyone's getting excited about our user conference, and most are beginning to prepare their training sessions. To assist, I've put together my top 21 tips for public presentations.

1. Know your 15-word summary. Can you summarize your presentation in fifteen words? If not, rewrite it and try again. Speaking is an inefficient medium for communicating information, so know what the important fifteen words are and repeat them often.
2. Develop rapport with the audience. Presentations should be entertaining and informative. The audience expects some appeal to their emotions. Reciting dry facts without passion or humor bores your audience, as does repetitious or unnecessary words. Keep the audience engaged. Interesting talks fly by. Boring ones last forever.
3. Tell stories. If your presentation is lengthy, explain your points using short stories or anecdotes. Great speakers know how to paint mental pictures for the audience, creating emotional connections between ideas.
4. Tell the truth. If someone asks you a question and you do not know the answer, tell them so, but offer to help them find the answers after the presentation, and when you are wrong, say you are wrong.
5. Hold questions until the end. To keep the presentation moving, ask the audience to hold questions until the end. If they have questions not specific to the presentation, ask them to meet with you after the session.
6. Repeat questions. When accepting questions, have the person asking state their name and where they are from. Repeat these details and the question for your audience.
7. Prepare and adapt. Speak to your audience, listen to questions, respond to reactions—adjust and adapt. In case your material is not getting across, be prepared to change strategy. Know what you can (and cannot) omit, and brace yourself for the unexpected.
8. Distribute handouts. Ensure that the audience focuses on your presentation, instead of taking notes. Distribute most prior to the arrival of the audience, and hold additional handouts for late arrivals.
9. Make eye contact with everyone in the room. Sincere eye contact makes everyone in your audience feel involved. Exchange eye contact with many people in the audience for 3 seconds each, and routinely glance at the crowd while speaking.
10. Remember the slide rules. Show no more than 10 slides per 20 minutes with each slide containing no font smaller than 30-point. Using any audio or visual aids, “going large” avoids interruption by making everything easily understandable from the back of the room. Highlight main points within the first few slides, and throughout the presentation, use more words than those on the slides. Also, remember to number your slides (or script pages) in case you lose your place.
11. Never read slides or notes verbatim. Use words as reminders, and spend most of your time making eye contact. Knowing your material makes you more competent and confident—and assures your audience that you are an expert on your subject.
12. Speak with conviction and enthusiasm. With a little practice, you can inject your passion for a subject into your presentations, and enthusiasm is contagious. Structure presentations using logical progressions from introduction (Thesis statement) to body (strong supporting arguments, accurate and up-to-date information) to conclusion (re-state thesis, summary, and logical conclusion).
13. Breathe. Feeling the urge to use presentation killers like ‘um,’ ‘ah,’ or ‘you know’? Replace those with a pause, taking a short breath—in—not out. Allow everyone time to reflect and think. Racing through will leave everyone out of breath.
14. Slow down. Nervous speakers tend to talk fast. Consciously slow your speech down and add pauses for emphasis. Use statements like, “that’s a good question,” or “I’m glad you asked me that,” to buy time and organize responses. Astute guests will know, but it still smoother than “ums” and “ahs”.
15. Never plan gestures. Any gestures you use should be an extension of your message and the real emotions that message conveys. Planned gestures always look phony, because they do not match other involuntary body cues.
16. Arrive early. Never fumble with software or equipment while people are waiting. Scope the room early, run through your slide show, and identify any potential problems. Verify early that all electrical outlets and devices are functioning properly.
17. Practice your speaking skills. Practice instills competence and confidence. If possible, practice with the microphone. Some require that you speak from one angle. Other microphones absorb sound from different directions, but are prone to feedback.
18. Project your voice. Do not yell. Stand up straight and let your voice resonate on the air from your lungs rather than your throat, and you will produce a louder and clearer sound. Vary the tone of your voice and dramatize if necessary. If a microphone is available, adjust and adapt your voice accordingly.
19. Know when to apologize. Apologize only when you have done something wrong. Never apologize for nervousness or a lack of preparation time. Most audiences will not detect your anxiety, unless you draw attention to it. Apologize when you are late or shown to be incorrect. Confidence will promote audience trust, but arrogance will erode it.
20. Be the Audience. When preparing your presentation, think from the audience’s perspective. What might they not understand? What might seem boring? As an audience member, “What’s in it for me?”
21. Know when to stop talking. Conclude your presentation by summarizing your main points. Follow with an interesting remark or an appropriate punch line. Leave your audience with a positive impression and a sense of completion. Do not belabor your closing remarks. If there is time remaining, take questions, thank your audience and sit down.

Let me know if you have any to add!

BIG things will be happening in September!

Did you ever have a secret that you were dyeing to tell, but no one would let you?

What if you had dozens of those secrets just aching to get out?

That is the way I feel about the 2008 User Training and Conference sessions.

EnvisionConnect is more powerful than ever before, and we have wonders to show our customers.

Additionally, the conference itself—September 29th and 30th, here in Fresno at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center—is undergoing changes, changes that guarantee to make it our most polished to date.

Watch this space for more details!

Scrum goes Green

Dan Greening is doing an incredible job explaining Scrum in no nonsense terms.

Scrum is a software management technique with high transparency, adaptive control, reasonably accurate release forecasting, and high productivity. However, because Scrum exposes marketers and developers to greater visibility and accountability than traditional waterfall approaches, and because it requires different management structures, some organizations encounter resistance implementing it.

There is much, much more on his site.

Check it out.

Lead, Follow, or Get Fired!

After a few false starts, I still have not been motivated to get my podcast up and running, and I am beginning to think I need a co-host. With a team in place, perhaps we can push each other forward.

Afterall, that's what the phrase Lead, Follow, or Get Fired is all about.

Teams must be perpetual—where each member is a moving part pushing the other moving parts forward. When one of those parts stops working, that part must be replaced.

I know that sounds harsh, but it is a reality.

To believe anything else is to fool yourself and damage the morale—and the throughput—of your team.

This is not to say that a part cannot be repaired. The team itself should work to oil and adjust its parts to keep them from failing, and the mechanic—the manager—shouldn't be called until such repairs are beyond the abilities of the team.

Successful teams lead themselves, and within each team, there are strong members that will push for improvements.

However, those leaders must not be allowed to dominate, as one persons improvement is often another persons impediment.

You must have strong leaders that counter other strong leaders, ensuring the team is always moving forward and weighing options based on everyone's input, in order to find the optimal solutions to all problems.

Any who sees a problem with current processes should lead the team to improve it, just as they would any other problem.

If a member cannot identify a problem with current processes, it is that member's responsibility to support those processes—continuing to move forward and to push other members to move forward.

Those old tried-and-true words of Thomas Paine are still alive and well today: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way" of those who are trying to improve and/or support the team.

Yea, I know what you are thinking—and you are wrong.

There is nothing negative about this perspective for two simple reasons:

• REASON ONE: The process is a fair one. Everyone has the opportunity to support the team as is or help change the team and its processes for the better. Finding a team where you are a better fit is truly a last resort.
• REASON TWO: The process has proven time and time again that it works!

So, about my podcast: I need to get a partner who can lead me, follow me, or fire me. This has gone on long enough.

Any takers?

Having a pow-wow with the wife

For my first wedding anniversary, I went to an Indian Pow-wow.

By now, my female readers are throwing tomatoes at me, and the Native American activists of the world are preparing their picket signs.

Get over it!

It was my wife's idea to attend the pow-wow, after some Mono friends of ours invited us to the foothills for the weekend—and those same friends positively hate the term "Native American".

The name "America" came from the same folks that labeled the continent's indigenous peoples "Indians" in the first place.

It's true that these folks are not from India, and that Columbus thought they were, but why someone coined a particular term doesn't make the term any less valid.

If you truly want to be politically correct, call a Mono a Mono, an Apache an Apache, or—here's a novel idea—simply call them by their name.

My great grandmother—"Mamaw Teya"—was Cherokee.

Her family name was Gill—not Native or American or Indian.

And by the way, the expected first anniversary gift is "paper".

Our "Indian Fry Bread" was much tastier than paper...

...and besides, my wife did ask me to take her dancing for our anniversary.