Gettin' Covey With It: #PNSQC Live Blog

This talk is called "7 Habits of Highly Effective Agile" which is a play on words of the Steven Covey book, hence my silly title. Yes, I'm getting a tad bit punchy right now, but I am lucky in that I get to have an energy boost. Nope, no food or drink or anything like that. I get to have Zeger Van Hese next to me doing his sketch notes.

I've waited years to actually see him do this. How am I going to concentrate on doing a live blog with that level of competition (LOL!)?

Seriously though, "Seven Habits" is a book from the 80s that is based on the idea of moving from dependence to interdependence with a midpoint of independence.  For those wondering about the original Covey Seven Habits, they are:

1. Be Proactive
2. Begin With the End in Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Seek to Understand, Then be Understood
5. Think Win/Win
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the Saw

The Agile Seven Habits break down to:

1. Focus on Efficiency and Effectiveness (make sure that your processes actually help you achieve these, such as cutting down, technical debt, providing necessary documentation, etc.)
2. Treat the User As Royalty (understand your customer's needs, and what you are providing for them)
3. Maintain an Improvement Frame of Mind (adapt, develop, experiment, learn, be open, repeat)
4. Be Agile, Then Do Agile (we have to have internalized and actively live the purpose before we can do the things to get the results. Communicate, collaborate, learn, initiate, respond)
5. Promote a Shared Understanding (develop a real team culture, break away from roles, stop thinking it's not my job, learn from each other, wear different hats and take on different tasks, pairing as a natural extension, determine what is important)
6. Think Long Term (develop a sustainable process, pacing that's doable and manageable, making habits that stick and persisting with them)

Well, there's my thoughts. and here's Zeger's. His are much cooler looking ;):