Doug's Blog Archives – Page 35 of 58

10 Mar 2010

Fe Fi Fo Scrum – I Smell the Blood of a Best Practices Man

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:21-06:00March 10th, 2010|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Software Development|

It is the time of year when gardeners start seeding plants indoors. Beans, Jack and giants suddenly popped into my head. (BTW, if you hire a landscaper, gardening is a waterfall process. If you do it yourself it is more an agile and iterative process. Things are always changing and you are never done.)

In "Succeeding with Agile" by Mike Cohn he states:

"Although team members should always look to share with one another their newly discovered good ways of working, they should resist the urge to codify them into a set of best practices."

Best practices imply perfection; a destination. Agile […]

8 Mar 2010

Who is Keeping Score?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:27-06:00March 8th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Dream Teams|

In order for you to hire the right (A) people, you need to build a scorecard defining their mission, expected outcomes and key competencies (reference is Who). This serves two benefits:

It allows you to objectively compare candidates,
It makes it clear to the new hire, what you want them to do.

This flows from your corporate strategy which when compared to your current staffing levels will determine who you need to hire to achieve your vision.

So really, you should have a scorecard for all of your key employees. For us and the way we are set up, all our employees are […]

7 Mar 2010

Being Indispensable and Type A Employees

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:35-06:00March 7th, 2010|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Dream Teams, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

I just finished reading "Linchpin – Are You Indispensable" by Seth Godin. In the book he encourages you to make a difference in what you do, treat your work as an art, connect with people, get things done, and be the best you can be. The world is changing quickly and people who merely show up (cogs), are going to be marginalized. So be indispensable.

I just started reading another book called "Who – The A Method for Hiring" by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. I tripped across this one through the magic of Amazon. The premise of […]

1 Mar 2010

Remember to Stop and Smell the Roses

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:39-06:00March 1st, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I was just looking out the window. There is a full moon shining on a low lying fog over the hills and prairie; the light reflecting off the tin roof of a barn to the south of us. Absolutely haunting and stunning.

The other day, I saw what initially looked to be a gopher running across the lawn. Upon closer look it was white and not quite a gopher. In fact it was a ferret with its winter coat; and a black tip on its tail. It looked like a white stick standing in the yellow grass. Thanks to our recent […]

25 Feb 2010

A Gentle Introduction to BDD

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:43-06:00February 25th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Software Development|

Our team went to the subject Calgary .NET User Group session presented by David Mogantini.

I am not a developer but I was able to follow the general lessons and examples. TDD, BDD and the Cortex testing framework were covered. David plans to open source the generic part of the framework which I think many will find useful.

David did a really good job and there was some really good discussion generated during the Q&A.

Good to see the development community meeting and sharing ideas here in Calgary. Hope we can keep it up even as the developer market becomes hyper-competitive again.

24 Feb 2010

Agile and the Devil’s Advocate

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:52-06:00February 24th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Software Development|

Software development has three camps regarding agile:

Outspoken True believers – everything is utopian if you only embrace it,
Outspoken Non-believers – nothing good there, would rather eat grass than have anything to do with it,
Somewhere in the middle – good and bad in everything, use what you can and adapt as you go.

There is actually a fourth camp; the oblivious (software developers who don't care enough about their craft to investigate options).

Fortunately, most developers (at least the ones I know) fall into the somewhere in the middle.

Humans when faced with change; encounter fear… the resistance.

Some ignore the fear and blindly accept the change,
Some […]

23 Feb 2010

Your Attitude Changes Your Results

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:57:58-06:00February 23rd, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I am constantly amazed at how the grey matter upstairs works.

It is kind of like when you buy a new car and then you start noticing all of the similar cars out there.

When you make the commitment as an individual and company to:

Making a difference,
Be innovative and creative,
Making the pie bigger,
Be indispensable,
Be more entrepreneurial,
Deliver (or ship)

Essentially being much more optimistic and less fearful of hypothetical problems that may never come to pass.

Then more of those things (opportunities) come your way.

Why? Because you are looking with the right filters.

22 Feb 2010

Effective Business Optimization

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:58:03-06:00February 22nd, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

Business optimization is not a one time thing.

Business optimization is not about looking at the numbers (though that is part of it) and squeezing every last penny out of your business.

It is an ongoing process; a journey with a destination far in the future.

Effective business optimization is a continuous cycle (not a rigid order):

Strategy – where you want to go,
Planning – how you plan to get there,
Communicate – involve the team in the discussion,
Goals and measurements – to determine if you got there,
Orchestration – what are your processes,
Innovation – big changes and leaps, creativity,
Improvement – incremental
Measure and Validate […]

21 Feb 2010

Business Strategy: What Do You Really Want to Optimize?

By Doug Wagner|2017-06-21T15:53:41-06:00February 21st, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|Tags: business, business growth, Business Optimization, Business Performance, business strategy, business success, Clients, Customers, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, innovation, Selling Your Business, small business, small business owner, strategy, Working on the Business|

Before you spend resources on improving your business performance, it is best to know where you want to go. This means getting clear on your business strategy.

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Improving Business Performance

There are two main ways of improving business performance:

Optimization – Making things better, best practices, incremental improvements,
Innovation – Doing different things, doing things differently, leaping past the competition.

It is easy to think there is a magic bullet for optimizing your business’s performance. […]

15 Feb 2010

Are You Working on the Right Things?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-06T12:47:34-06:00February 15th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Lately I have been struggling with over-commitment and more things to do than time. Between the business, hobbies, personal relationships, and other things that need to get done, sometimes there is just not enough time in the day.

When all else fails, start making lists and prioritize.

I was reviewing Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. In it he has the following diagram:

Quadrant I – Tasks

These are things that are both important and urgent; problems and fires that cannot be ignored. This is reactive work. […]

Doug’s Blog

Improving Business Performance

Quadrant I – Tasks