Rational Scrum » Asides

Broken RSS feed is fixed!

Zacharias Beckman — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:45:12 +0000

Oops, sorry folks — looks like something changed over the holidays, and our RSS feed was broken for a little while. It’s back online so please resubscribe by visiting http://www.rational-scrum.com/feed — and sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll have a few great articles coming out this month so stay tuned.

In search of silver linings

Zacharias Beckman — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:05:58 +0000

Every enterprise, big or small, knows that cloud computing is going to be part of their business. Small companies use it every time they turn to QuickBooks Online, Google mail, or a hosted Exchange server. Large companies are increasingly being attracted by the promise of zero hardware costs and ease of deployment. Yet there’s still fear about moving into the cloud, mainly because of the changes a business must address in order to embrace virtualization. Change hurts, and it hurts businesses more, at least in the short term — and businesses will always be concerned about the cost of change versus the benefits. In this article, take a look at how companies are coping with the cloud revolution.

How to shift from survival mode to growth mode

Zacharias Beckman — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:59:31 +0000

Jay Goltz’ article in The New York Times is spot on: “[Einstein] said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Too often, I think that’s really the definition of small business. Whether it is continuing to hire the wrong people because of a bad hiring protocol, sticking with the same marketing plan even though it isn’t working or thinking we are going to become more profitable by underpricing our competition, many business owners stick to what they have gotten comfortable doing and hope it will start producing better results. Why?”

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Is being too wired destroying creativity?

Zacharias Beckman — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 22:11:06 +0000

Is being too wired destroying creativity? Research shows that multitasking employees who are constantly bombarded with information are less creative and less focused. The solution may be letting your employees unplug sometimes, according to this recent Economist article. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, look at your work environment. Can your employees take the time to focus on one task without distraction? If not, consider making changes that will let them. You’ll see remarkable increases in efficiency!

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Getting paid: A talk by Mike Monteiro

Zacharias Beckman — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:09:43 +0000

Mike Monteiro, co-founder and design director at Mule Design, recently gave a talk on getting paid and the value of having a well designed contract. As he says in this entertaining and very informative, spot-on talk: “Excuses vary – from ‘We ended up not using the work’ to ‘it’s really not what we were after.’” He replies to all of them the same way: “F*ck you. Pay me.” This talk, explaining the philosophy and co-presented with his attorney Gabe Levine, is geared toward the creative services industry, but should resonate with any small business owner who has problem clients.

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Team-based performance is key, but only works with team input

Zacharias Beckman — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:20:19 +0000

Tammy Erickson’s recent blog post in the Harvard Business Review on Rethinking Performance Assessment is a spot-on article. She focuses on the value of team-based reward systems and how such systems only work if team feedback is part of the process. The article points out research suggesting that simply moving to a team-based reward system is an insufficient and possibly even counterproductive strategy — chiefly because there is no correlation between perceptions outside the team and internal team perceptions regarding individual contribution. In other words, a team’s supervisor isn’t going to know who’s working hard and who isn’t. Only the team members themselves have that kind of detailed knowledge — thus the case to build team feedback into the reward system.

2011 Business and Technology Trends Seminar

Zacharias Beckman — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:32:54 +0000

Hyrax International and One Source Alliance have put together a great evening venue for a seminar on Business and Technology Trends of 2011. The seminar will be hosted at the Westlake Village Inn in Westlake Village, California, the evening of March 29. The session includes networking opportunities and will focus on OEM or B2B businesses and contrasting trends of small to medium versus large businesses, with supporting information on how technology changes coming in the near term support or enable these business trends. Register before March 23rd to get discounted seats (the price goes up to $35 after the 23rd).

Rational Scrum opens for business

Scrum versus Kanban

Zacharias Beckman — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:18:32 +0000

Pawel Brodzinski makes a very succinct and key observation regarding the differences of Scrum and Kanban (and also links to a handful of opposing views by Ken Schwaber, David Anderson and Mike Cohn). If you want to figure out how Scrum and Kanban differ, this is a great starting point — be sure to check the referenced articles to get both (or, all three, or four) sides of the story.

Trying to change the world can be dangerous

Zacharias Beckman — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 19:34:35 +0000

Trying to change the world (or at least the professional one)? It can be dangerous, as Julia Kirby writes in Harvard Business Review: It’s one thing to be the agent of change in an organization that realizes it needs it; it’s quite another when you’re the only one in the room convinced of that. Be sure people perceive any change as being done for them, not to them, or risk their wrath.

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How big is cloud computing, really?

Zacharias Beckman — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:28:47 +0000

How big is Cloud Computing? How much do we rely on it today, and how much more tomorrow? One thing is clear: With distributed computing everywhere, in our laptops, our smart phones, our tablets and iPads, everyone has one thing in common: We all want to connect to something. That something is rapidly turning out to be the cloud. Make sense of the arcane terminology of cloud computing, and find out what the pundits have to say and what a few less-known researchers think the real story is. More »

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