Call me goofy, but I have to be transparent and tell you of a pattern I see all the time. I often start my Certified Scrum and agile training classes with an exercise. I ask everyone line up according to how much TV they watch (or Netflix, Hulu or video games they play, etc). After a brief discussion of how the group managed to do that without detailed instructions, I then ask them to line up according to agile experience.
Again and again I see the majority of people who watch TV (or play games) the most switch places with those who don't. That is, many people watching TV the most have the least amount of agile experience, and many who watch TV the least have the most agile experience.
Let me suggest two stories that might be happening.
Booby loves TV. Won't miss an episode of Real OC Vampires, Food Wars or Celebrity Dogs. He hears that his company is going to "go agile." "Cool," he thinks, "hope they pick my team to pilot it."
Peter loves learning. Won't miss a blog post, new book or even his monthly issues of Tech Talk. He hears his company is going to "go agile." "Cool," he thinks, "because I've been talking about it to my boss, my team, and the project managers, sharing what I've been reading. I'm getting a lot more out of the Scrum book I ordered, know that it may happen any day. I hope they pick my team to pilot it."
Who might you pick to be the ScrumMaster on the pilot team?
By the way, I sometimes share in my class how my pre-marriage counselor requested us not to have a TV the first year of marriage to improve our communication. Something about men not being as natural at listening as women. Not sure. I wasn't paying attention...
2 comments:
I would add smartphone/tablet/vapid internet surfing to the TV watching
Great post. Few people recognize how life-sucking TV is. Jim Rohn once asked a friend how much he thought his tv cost him. His friend said, "$400". Rohn said, 'that's not true. It may have cost you $400 to BUY it, but it cost you about $40,000 a year to watch it!"
My wife and I haven't had cable since 2001, one of the top 3-4 decisions we've ever made.
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