Little Logos

a very cool article at The Man in Blue - where we get to see some handwriting examples of some typographers. Above is an example of Erik Spiekermann’s penmanship.

Off to the Snowy Mountains on a Bushwalk in a couple of weeks. This will basically be the same walk that I did with Marc (and Andrew and Thomas + the Beaver Boys) 2 years ago. This time I am taking both Marc and Ryan. Andrew is taking both Thomas and Courtney. Marty is joining us to carry all the gear that the kids cannot.

The last walk was pure joy and a great time with Marc. I hope we have as much fun this time.

Was off buying extra kit today for the boys. Love shopping for Camping gear but it all costs so much, especially when you do x2.

More to be posted on this.

Wish I had time to indulge an extra hobby in my life. I love LEGO and am continually amazed at the endless possibilities it provides. I am not one of those people that build the models in the set.

I really enjoy looking at the kind of work being done by people like Adrian FLorea. These types of models apeal to my love of sci-fi and put a much harder edge on the standard lego models.

If I had a clone we would appreciate knowing that one of us could have the time to do things like this.

I have recently uploaded all my recent photos including the USA trip photos (awesome skiing in Breckenridge) and Lotusphere to my Flickr account www.flickr.com/betbeder. They can also be seen in this blog by going to the /img directory.

A great short punchy article by Kent McDonald on Agile Project Leadership - “What is Agile, Really??”

McDonald covers 7 areas of Project Leadership, each of these is a good reminder about key areas of team management that apply mostly to software developement but can also apply to other team-based activities.

His “Words to Lead By” are:

• Collaborate
• Iterate
• Serve the Team
• Consider Context
• Practice Excellence
• Reflect and Adapt
• Deliver Value

The general thrust here is to keep moving forward and empower the team. But the best reminder was about the importance of “Context” - and here a quote is appropriate:

Unfortunately, what works great in one project may not work as well in other situations. There are usually many environmental factors that play a large role in how effective a practice is on a given project. Because of this, I usually prefer to use the term appropriate practices or good practices to emphasize the fact that there really are no best practices across all projects.

Teams need to consider context when choosing which processes, practices, and techniques they use so they can be sure they are doing the things that will make them successful and are not doing the things that they do not need to do. In fact when it comes down to it, perhaps considering context is the only real best practice around.

A key point that may not be immediately obvious is that project teams need to determine what practices, processes, and techniques they are going to employ during a project, and be willing to change those practices as they learn more throughout the life of the project. Project teams often work within an organizationally defined process they believe they must follow to the letter, many times to the detriment of the project. Usually if those project teams examine reality a little bit, they will find they have some latitude as to what practices they adopt from the organizational method.

I think this needs to be kept at the forefront - especially when working with contractors whos last project experience context may not fit with their current project and organisation.