MiramarMike: Blog

It sucks out there in Wellington and around the country at the moment as the Government, tech, and media industries cull roles in wide ranging and sweeping actions. No-one except you know how this feels, and only those close to you can understand the impact, but know this, you will survive. 1: Understand, YOU are not redundant. Your role is being made redundant, you are not. For whatever reason the role you've been filling is deemed no longer viable within the organisation you used to work within.  You are not redundant, your role is. This is isn't about you, don't take it personally, this is not a reflection of you. Of course the impact on your life and those you hold close is very personal, but the reason it has happened is not about you. (as a side note, you are not merely your role anyway, you are way more than whatever work thing you were doing) 2: Do not panic! If you can, take time to re-evaluate what you do before shotgunning your CV out to every recruitment agency

"Agile", a 5 letter word that can bring up thoughts, emotions, and even reactions. Of course it does, it's a loaded word that can mean as many things to as many people hearing it. It's a word that has been bandied around inside organisations for a number of years, it's been unfairly hooked to many other words, and it's still one that can cause confusion. Over the years I've worked with teams in all corners of organisations incorporating those that want to, "Do it, do it now!", through, "Up for it, but please help us", to, "Whah? Nah mate". Everyone, no matter where you are, has questions, and these are the top 5 I've heard but almost definitely not the top 5 out there, the comment box is right there at the bottom of this post for you. Right, onto the 5 questions heard from around the traps ... 1: What is the point of changing to agile? It's just more meetings I don't have time to change to Agile I'm too busy I&

Let's dive in and say it out loud, a backlog is merely a list of user stories BUT it is not a list of tasks . It's items within items within items. On a typical backlog you will have, Initiatives with Epics holding User Stories containing Tasks and even Sub-tasks. Initiatives and Epics we all mostly get correct, they are the big items spanning big(ish) timescales, say no less than 3 months. Tasks and sub-tasks, we get those as well. We're all used to writing lists of things to do, "Get the bins in", "Get a haircut", "Write the weekly report". Things we need TO DO. And there's User Stories, a weird in between thing that's not massive but, so you're telling me Mike, not a task. Why can't my Backlog be full of things to do, that's what lists are for, no? Taking this straight from, User Stories - the best we can create , a doc of hints and tips from me at ... well, somewhere ;) What is a User Story? Summary: A user story is an

Of course there are a LOT of nuances that this video hints at but doesn't go into ... and to be fair no 3-day course can prepare you for those either, it comes with experience. As an ex-colleague of mine once said, "[this is] The Best Video on YouTube. Ever.*", and he's not wrong. * about Agile