Agile Management | NOOP.NL

Seven Reasons I Can Use Your Help

Day 1 sucked.

Day 2 sucked a little less. Maybe because I was getting used to it.

Day 3 was fantastic. I wish all days were like day 3.

Now it’s day 4, and I might get used to things being fantastic.

After quitting my job and going independent, I am trying to start a new professional career of speaking, training, writing, and nagging. I created a new site to support my services, and to give myself something to nag about.

There are seven reasons things are going forward…

1. My book Management 3.0 is now available on Amazon for pre-order;
2. Two Famous People have committed to writing a foreword;
3. There’s already plenty of praise from early reviewers;
4. The release date is still December 30 (Amazon’s date is wrong);
5. I scored several new speaking engagements;
6. Training partners in Norway and Sweden are scheduling courses;
7. And at least four other partners in various countries are lining up.

Still, there are seven reasons I can use your help…

1. Unlike computer problems, speaking gigs don’t jump on me while I’m having breakfast;
2. Same with agile management training. I think there’s a market. But I will have to find it;
3. I don’t know many people in software businesses, and I can use some more contacts;
4. Book promotion takes time and effort. I tried cloning myself, but it didn’t work;
5. Writing a book review of my own work would be weird. I think it’s better when others did that;
6. Publishing my guest posts on my own blog is even sillier; It would be better to post them elsewhere;
7. I cannot give myself a hug, and tell myself not to be anxious about the future.

If you think you can give this new entrepreneur a small push in the back, and make me go forward, I would really appreciate it. I can pay you back with thank-you notes, autographs, some publicity, and a warm smile with my shiny new teeth.

Now, I want to finish this post with a big thanks to everyone who has expressed their support via email, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I dared to make this leap because you told me I should do it. And so I did.

But enough psychological harassment and self-aggrandizement. Back to nagging about software…

Why-oh-why does the cursor up key in my Windows Live Writer not work, while the cursor down key does? Is this some plot to make me go forward?

(image by Ed Sweeney)

So Long, and Thanks For All the Fuss

At first, I wasn’t really enthusiastic about the idea of working for ISM eCompany. But the owner and CEO of the company at that time (now Minister of Finance of The Netherlands) somehow convinced me that it would be a great job.

And (in this case) he was right.

I participated in awesome projects (and a few not so awesome). I worked with great people (and one or two numskulls). I wrote some code I was very proud of (and also a huge amount of crap). And I managed at least a hundred people (though sometimes I suspect they were actually managing me).

But the best part of working for ISM was that nothing was ever the same. There was always some mess to clean up. Always problems to be solved. Always interesting challenges to discuss. Always fuss about stuff. And that’s what made these seven years so valuable to me. Sure, the fuss wasn’t always enjoyable. But, from a learning perspective, it was priceless. I used many of those valuable lessons as inspiration for this blog, and for my upcoming book. And on top of that, I could choose my own work, my own title, and I got a nice salary too! Amazing.

But all things must come to an end. And now it’s time to go.

This was my last day at ISM eCompany. It was a time of fun and frustration. I felt both excitement and despair. And I worked sometimes singing, sometimes cursing. In short, it was a time I will never forget.

Thanks to everyone who made me want to stay for so long. In particular Arno, Niels and Jeroen, who launched with me the Sociotoco business unit. (It was the best idea we had in years, almost as good as promoting the CEO to Minister of State.)

I have no idea what the world looks like where I’m going. It’s both exciting and scary. So I may call upon your help some time. In the meantime, try to do what I did all those seven years: learn. And I hope you will keep following my adventures on this blog, which will now focus on my new career as writer, speaker, and trainer. If you enjoy watching people struggle and tumble, stay tuned. This might be hilarious.

So long, and thanks for all the fuss.

(And sorry about the crappy code.)

(image by striatic)

Hire Me As a Speaker

You can hire me as a speaker.

I have previously been invited to speak for GlobalCollect, ISDC, Sogeti, Level Up, Imtech, and several other interesting businesses. They hired me to add a bit of spark to their company events, or to enrich their business unit seminars.
 
 
 

Why would you hire me as a speaker?

1. It is easier to inspire an entire organization with one well-designed keynote session than with an extensively crafted memo;
2. It is cheaper to fire up self-development of employees, than it is to send them all on an expensive three-day course;
3. It is an effective way for managers to show that they care, by inviting an outsider to share his experiences with everyone.

What topics can I talk about?

You can make me talk about anything you want. But these are my favorite topics:

• Agile/Lean software development
• Scrum, XP, Kanban
• Management/Leadership
• Systems/complexity thinking
• Social media/social commerce
• My book: Management 3.0

However, if there’s a special message you want me to get across, I can do that for you. Just give me the raw materials and I’ll turn them into a great delivery. With pictures. And style. Maybe even a joke or two.
 

What do my talks look like?

I use hand-drawn illustrations, metaphors, humor, and plenty of “brain rules” to ensure the best delivery. You can see a list of my standard presentations here. And I also have several videos available.

People’s ratings for my talks are consistently high. At the Dutch Testing Conference 2010 93% of the audience rated my keynote session as good (and 61% said it was very good.) At NDC 2010 my sessions scored 95% “green.” And at Agile 2010 I scored an average rating of 4,4 (out of 5).
 

What does it cost to hire me?

Here’s the good part: until the end of the 2010, when my book Management 3.0 comes out, I have a special offer! There will be a 50% discount for everything that I do. The special offer only lasts until the release of the book, and my availability is limited. So the earlier you contact me, the higher the chance I can say yes!

Simply email me the date/time, location, topic, duration, type of audience, and any other relevant details, and I will give you a quote.

Why hire me, and not someone else?

Here is my positioning statement (based on Moore’s template):

For software development organizations
who look for ways to inspire their employees
I offer talks and discussions about agile topics
delivered in an informative and entertaining style.
Unlike sessions by other speakers and consultants
my deliveries have style, impact, and silly pictures.
 

Why hire me now, and not later?

Of course, you can contact me anytime, both now and later. But other authors have told me that, once the book is out, I will probably be overloaded with requests for seminars and conferences. And I will need to say ‘No’ more often than I can say ‘Yes.’

I look forward to that, but you probably don’t! That’s why it is smart to contact me now, while it is still possible for me to cope with demand. ;)

(Or send this page to your manager, and tell him/her to contact me.)

Hope to talk with you soon...

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Latest, greatest and favoritest posts: How to Make a Presentation (part 3) How to Make a Presentation (part 2) How to Make a Presentation (part 1)

Changes for Me and This Blog

I have some major changes ahead of me, which will probably have an impact on this blog.

Medium time scale
In just two days, on August 1, I will send the final manuscript of my book to my publisher. That doesn’t mean I’m done with the book. It only means the writing will be replaced by marketing. But I look forward to that. It’s another creative project, and a new opportunity to learn while doing something useful. And you know me, I love self-promotion.

Long time scale
Yesterday, I told my boss that I want to leave ISM eCompany by the end of the year. I had a great time these past seven years. But with the launch of my book I intend to initiate a new career of full-time writing, speaking, and training. And self-promotion. Again, it will be a road full of learning opportunities. It’s probably a painful road, but definitely worth traveling.

Short time scale
But first, I will need to prepare for the Agile 2010 conference in Orlando, where I will be presenting/hosting one session. Self-promotion for that will commence in about three days. Immediately after the conference Raoul and I intend to enjoy a brief but well-deserved vacation in Norway, with all channels switched off. Except for the verbal ones.

These are the three big changes I’m facing.
It’s so exciting, it’s almost scary.

Don’t expect too much from me on this blog in August. My self-promotion will be back, with a vengeance, in September!

(image by Capture Queen)

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How to Make a Presentation (part 3)

…continued from part 1 and part 2.

Step 7: Create slides

When I am confident about the content, structure and supporting materials, I start creating the slides. Note that rework of the content in slides is costly! That’s why I need to know what is going to be shown on which slide before I start making them.

At this time the details of the layout (font size, colors, positioning, etc) are not important. These are easy to do later.

What’s important in this step is that content, structure, and basic materials all have their right place in the presentation.

Step 8: Review the talk

This is the moment when I review the entire presentation to check if I have everything right. Are the stories in the right place? Do I have some silly jokes to entertain the audience? Do I have some surprises in there to keep them awake?

Basically it means I perform the entire presentation in my head to see if the flow is right. This review can result in some final tweaking of the content: splitting or merging slides, or adding/removing some.

Step 9: Tune the layout

Only now is the right time to bother with the layout, after I have verified that all content is in the right place. This means taking care of font, size, colors, positioning, etc.

Again, consistency is important. I don’t want to use 5 different sizes of fonts on my slides. That’s why the content must be finalized at this point, because the best decisions for a consistent layout depend on the whole set of texts and visuals.

(Oh, and one layout tip: please don't center everything on your slides. Stop that immediately. It's boring. You have two good friends for design: white space and alignment.)

Step 10: Practice!

The last step, and one of the most important ones, is to practice the presentation. I practice a new talk at least three times. The purpose is not to rehearse the texts until I know them by heart. I prefer being casual, and being able to respond to the audience. That means I don’t want to read from a script.

However, the purpose is to know the content, so that I’m not surprised by it myself. For example, only when speaking out loud I may realize that I don’t know how to pronounce a foreign word; or I realize that I must know the exact timing of a joke right before I show a slide that gives away the punch line.

My plea is never to go on stage if you have not rehearsed your performance. Music lovers expect artists to have practiced before they see them on stage. It is an insult to the audience if you think you can get away by not rehearsing your show.

That’s it. These are my 10 steps for making presentations. I hope you found them useful!

back to part 1 – back to part 2

p.s. You still have not ordered the book Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds? Well, then at least get yourself Confessions of a Public Speaker (Scott Berkun), or Slide:ology by (Nancy Duarte). Those ain’t bad either.

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How to Make a Presentation (part 2)

…continued from part 1.

Step 4: Define slides

In this step I transform the topics to individual slides, by sketching on (new) sticky notes my ideas about what the slides will communicate. Sometimes it’s just a few words, sometimes just a picture, and sometimes a graph or a quote. At this point I sometimes use different colors of sticky notes to distinguish the content (the message) from the context (agenda).

Also, in this step, I try to keep the 6 SUCCES principles in mind, which tell me that sticky messages are about Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions, and Stories.

Step 5: Design slides

The next step is about how I will create the slides. Will I use photos? Will I use quotations? Will I make my own drawings? I write these decisions on the sticky notes so that I will remember them. I recently switched from the use of photos to (mainly) drawings, but anyone should use a format that he/she is comfortable with.

Most important for me is to understand how much work there is to do to design all slides. And whether or not I can save some time by reusing visuals across multiple slides. These are things I want to know before creating the first picture.

Step 6: Create visuals

Then it is time to start collecting (or creating) all materials. Which for me means either browsing Flickr for free (creative commons) images, or drawing them all myself.

Here the crucial issue is consistency.  I have seen many presentations with a complete lack of consistency of the visuals across the slides. But people enjoy presentations more when the design is good, and consistent. For example: if you’re using photos, you might want to make sure that the photos have a certain color as a recurring theme. Another idea is to use a metaphor (like traffic management) for most of your pictures.

back to part 1 – go to part 3

p.s. Have you already ordered the book Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds? Why not? Didn’t I tell you this last time?

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How to Make a Presentation (part 1)

Over the years I've made quite a lot of presentations. The ratings of my last presentations at conferences have been quite favorable, and people regularly ask permission to steal some of my slides. So it seems I'm doing at least something right. And that's why I'd like to share my process with you...

Step 1: collect topics

No matter how I decide about my topics (I usually take them from my blog and my book,) I start by collecting them on sticky notes. Each sticky note is a topic, and I put them all on the outside of my bathroom wall. (Why there, you may wonder? Well, because they tend not to stick on the inside.)

At this time I don't worry about individual slides. One topic may need five slides later, other topics may need to be combined. I don't care. I only think about topics and how they relate to one another.

Note that "topics" here means anything I want to tell the audience. Including all kinds of simple things, examples, statistics, etc. That's why I end up with a lot of sticky notes here.

Step 2: create structure

When I'm happy about the topics, I create a structure by clearly defining sections (which will be turned into the agenda later) and the logical flow of the topics within a section (are they in a natural order?).

I clearly indicate sections (and sub-sections) with a different color of sticky notes.

This is the perfect moment to remove topics (when they don't fit well in the flow of the presentation,) or to add extra topics (to smooth transitions between other topics) where this is needed.

Step 3: make story

Then it is time to decide what the conclusion is of the presentation (so that everything in the presentation supports that conclusion.) Basically I ask myself two important questions:

• What is my point?
• Why should people care?

If I cannot answer these questions clearly I will know my presentation is flawed. Asking myself these questions usually results in me making some more changes, until I'm happy about the message that I want to get across.

I also take time to fashion metaphors, and to think about a nice introduction. I ask myself: what stories am I going to tell the audience to introduce the topics, and to keep people engaged throughout the presentation?

For example: in my last presentation (Big-Ass View on Competence) I used traffic management as a metaphor, and I came up with stories about car driving, bicycles, roundabouts, traffic police, and even witches on brooms.

go to part 2 – go to part 3

p.s. While you're waiting for the next installment of this little series, please order the book Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds. It's plain awesome. 

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Birthday Tweetup: Tuesday July 20, 2010

Next Tuesday is my birthday.

It’s going to be a special birthday because my age will reach the 13th prime number. So cool!

And so I invite you to celebrate this with me at my birthday tweetup at Dudok Rotterdam, between 20:00 and 22:00 on July 20th.

And I have an idea for a birthday present...

I hope to get 3,000 followers on Twitter.

I will buy you a free drink and a piece of Dudok apple pie if you’re there, but… only if you help me to get me my present!

I’m sure you’re asking, am I welcome at this tweetup? Well, if I know you exist, you’re invited! That means: friends, family, colleagues, contacts, Italian disco singers, my dentist, and any other weak ties in my contacts list are all welcome to join the tweetup.

Please give me a signal if you intend to be there (tweet, sms, email, voice). And tweet about it! Or else the only thing I give away for free is my radiant birthday smile.

Birthday present status (July 15)… 2793 followers: no free apple pie yet!

Hope to see you at Dudok on Tuesday!

p.s. Even if you can’t come, you might want to help the attendees get their free apple pie.

Disclaimer: the Dudok kitchen might have an upper limit to available apple pie...

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Which Compliment Do You Want?

Recently, at a conference, I noticed a big difference between compliments.

After my presentation, several people gave me compliments on my inspiring message and my simple and clear drawings. I was grateful for that. And I was glad that I had achieved my goal.

I also overheard people complimenting another speaking on the stunning animations that he created with prezi.com, with rotating words and sliding bubbles. But I noticed people were not talking about his message.

Which compliment do you want?
What is your goal?

Are you trying to make people think about your message?

Or are you trying to send new users to prezi.com?

p.s. This is not a rant against prezi.com or animations. In Toy Story 3 animations seem to work quite well.

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Hairdresser Bingo

This week someone asked for the name of the dog that lives on my head. So I understood it was high time to see the hairdresser again.

I always hated going to the hairdresser.

I’m stuck in a chair for 45 minutes, with someone firing questions at me and pulling me into a type of communication that I can only describe as noise. And there’s no way of escaping without looking stupid, and people showing pity on the molested dog.

But I found a solution. I turned it into a game.

It is called Hairdresser Bingo.

There are five standard questions that hairdressers get taught at Hairdresser University:

1. Do you have plans for this weekend?
2. Do you have plans for the holidays?
3. Do you have a free day today?
4. What kind of work do you do?
5. What kind of gel do you use in your hair?

For every standard question that they ask, I earn a point. Three points allows me to buy an ice cream. Five points allows me to buy a chocolate cake.

Now I look forward to see the hairdresser, because I get to play Hairdresser Bingo. And mind you, it’s not as easy as it looks! So far I’ve not been able to talk them into a chocolate cake prize. But I get another try in three hours…

(photo by psyberartist)

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