I attended KalamazooX over the weekend, which was a great combination of design, business, and technical presentations. As someone who has transitioned from a programmer into marketing & strategy consulting, it was nice to see content that wasn’t just staring at code. I believe some of the slides are up online, but here are some thoughts, not from every presentation, but from some of my favorites:
Dave Giard – Effective Customer Communication
- Communications is a two-way street – both sides are responsible.
- It’s important to get/give feedback early and often.
- You need to add value for the customer – what does the customer feel adds value? – need to know this up front.
- Weekly status of what you did, what you plan to do next week, any issues/problems.
- A daily standup (including the client) is better.
- The most important part of verbal communications (any communications) is listening.
James Bender – Organizational Dynamics
- Plug into the company’s information highway (water cooler, wiki, blog, intranet, etc.).
- Be someone in the know.
- Evangelize yourself and your ideas (and also your team!).
- Build coalitions.
- Learn the right way to gripe.
Josh Holmes – The Art of Simplicity
- The definition of simplicity from Websters includes: lack of sophisitcation, good sense or intelligence – which is how technologists often think.
- Systems need to be designed so the user knows immediately what to do and starts doing it.
- A simple design does not mean that the problem solved was simple.
- Users may not see a request as complex – they just know it will make their experience better.
- Agile is a buzzword, but it’s what techs need to be in order to solve problems.
- The right solution is not the one other technologists understand – its the one the user does.
- Enterprise automatically adds ten times the complexity.
- Consumer space has solved bigger issues in simpler ways.
- We usually don’t understand who are users are – the top 3 things they do.
- Use the right tool for the job.
- Solving someone’s problem adds value.
Brian Prince – 5 Easy Ways to Be More Agile
- Be Subversive – start doing things without permission, without changing what you’re doing, help people see value.
- Stand up Meetings – what was done yesterday, doing today, roadblocks. Don’t solve problems – have speaking token.
- Keep – Stop – Start Meetings – Introspectives at end of each iteration. What should we keep doing, what needs to stop, what do we need to start doing – assign people to solve by next iteration.
- Must – Should – Could – Won’t Priorities (from user’s view). Keep quality and priority in the picture. Use quality in equation always.
- Keep users and client as close as possible (not usually the same). Ask – share – show. Tell stories. Use simple planning wall.
Leon Gersing – Change
- Make little changes until you don’t realize that you’ve changed.
- Be open to change.
- Know who you are.
- Don’t let others define who you are.
- There are 3 states in life – job, career, enjoying life – which are not always the same. Know which you’re in.
- Change where you work (not always the employer, but sometimes the environment, or your state of mind).
- If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.
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