Category Archives: Tips

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The “No” Repertoire for Scrum Teams

Learn to say 'No' to get more Done!

In the book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown,  author talks about the importance of saying ‘No’ to focus on and completing what is important and essential right now. Get Hyper Tip

In Scrum, you go into a Sprint having already made a commitment to a number of stories. What happens when your manager, supervisor, or one of the stakeholders comes to you requesting to take on one new thing on your plate. Are you a people pleaser? Do you say ‘Yes’?

If you said ‘Yes’, you already undermined the commitment the Team made to the sprint. A better approach would be to say ‘No’. But, how do you say ‘No’ to your manager, supervisor, or the stakeholder (who might be paying the bills)?

The “No” Repertoire

In the book, Greg suggests having a ‘No’ repertoire handy. You can get to this list when faced with a situation where you have to say ‘No’, and say it gracefully. Here is my version of the ‘No’ repertoire for Scrum teams.

  • No. We can not take on this new Story as we are already ‘in flight’ into a new Sprint.
  • Yes, we may be able to take on this new Story. But, what are you willing to de-prioritize from our current Sprint?
  • Thanks for this new Story. We can put it on our Product Backlog, and take it on in the next Sprint if it is still your Priority.
  • We can take on this new Story, but are you willing to put the success of the current Sprint on the line for this new Story?
  • Can you please explain the business reasons behind this urgency (on this new Story)?
  • Why can’t this new Story wait till we get into next Sprint?

[bctt tweet=”The “No” Repertoire for #Scrum Teams! http://www.nimeshsoni.com/get-hyper-tip-learn-to-say-no/ #getHyper #Agile”]

Yes, you can say ‘No’ to your stakeholders. You just have to learn the art of saying ‘No’ gracefully!

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#makeTheShift: Start Creating VALUE

#makeTheShift – Finishing Work and Start Creating Value

#makeTheShift

Stop starting too much work, Start creating VALUE

Too often we have too many things ‘in flight‘. With the computers in our palms and pockets, we are taking multi-tasking to the extreme! Start this new year with a promise to yourself: Promise not to start more work. Instead, shift the focus on finishing the work and creating Value.

It doesn’t matter how much work you have on your plate or how busy you are. What matters is how much Value you are creating for your customers. Adopt a Work in Progress (WIP) limit for yourself and adhere to the limit.

You will be amazed as to how much MORE you will accomplish in the new year with this formula!

[bctt tweet=”{Adopt + Adhere } to WIP limit = Amazing Accomplishments! #makeTheShift pic.twitter.com/sWuSsK1eKL”]

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Pomodoro is the best productivity tool that you can ask for in today’s world filled with all distractions we love to call iPads, iPhones, Text and SMS, the Facebook, the Twitter and all other Social Media updates that we can not get enough of. They are hinderance when we are trying to get things done. They are distractions that derail our focus taking away our attention to non-value add tasks.Get Hyper Tip

The concept of pomodoro is very simple. Timebox yourself going into an activity; typically 25 minutes at a time. Set aside the timebox of  25 minutes and commit to doing one thing and one thing only during that 25 minutes.

[bctt tweet=”An apple a day, keeps a doctor away! A tomato (Pomodoro) each time, keeps the waste away! #getHyper #Agile”]

 

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Crazy Idea: Add more Memory than Apple recommends for your Mac ?!

Thinking of adding RAM to your sluggish Apple Macbook Pro?

I have a mid-2012 Macbook with 4Gb of RAM (2x2Gb). I have had it for a while and have been extremely satisfied with it, until recently.

MacBook with Spinning Wheel

Seeing the dreaded ‘Spinning Rainbow Wheel’ more often since some of the recent updates. Now, I don’t know if the slowness was due to the updates or other apps that I might have loaded since I bought it. The RAM upgrade was overdue for this Mac anyways. So, I started looking into it figuring I might be able to get some good deals on it during this festive holiday season.

Revelation

I looked at Apple website, and it recommended maximum up to 8Gb RAM for this Macbook. I was looking for more horsepower than what they were recommending. So, I started looking at other options and ran into Crucial’s System Scanner tool that can ‘review’ your configuration and recommend the right kind of memory for your Mac.

Running that utility on my Mac, it revealed that I can add onto 16 Gb (2x8Gb) on my machine. I was baffled! Apple, the manufacturer of the machine suggests unto 8Gb only. What’s going on here, I said 😃

Crucial RAM Memory recommendation for mid-2012 Apple MacBook Pro

I digged little deeper and had separate conversations with both the vendors: Apple and Crucial. Apple rep ‘un-officially’ confirmed that the 16Gb would work on my machine. Plus, he also made a comment that I was getting a very good deal on the memory when I mentioned the price tag from Crucial.

Taking the Plunge

On the other end, Crucial guaranteed that 16Gb will work as they had already done tests on similar machines. Crucial also offers 45-day return policy with no restocking fee! Armed with that information, I decided to take the plunge!

The Flying Machine

The memory showed up in my mailbox within two days, and I did not have to pay for shipping either. [Thanks Crucial, it was an awesome experience buying this item from you] With the new memory, I took my Mac on the operation table, not knowing what to expect. My son assured me that it is easy to replace memory, and volunteered himself to play the ‘doctor’. Within 10 minutes he declared victory!  The new memory was installed and was working! [Check out this video on how easy it is to install it. Here is another similar video.]

He had installed the new memory in a jiffy! My Mac recognized the 16Gb RAM, and with that much horsepower, it is a flying machine now!

Yes, folks, your Mac can accept more memory, more than what Apple recommends!  You don’t have to live with the beautiful but annoying Rainbow Wheel!

Apple Mac Configuration-16Gb RAM

Go ahead and put some juice on your Mac!

[bctt tweet=”Crazy Idea: Add more Memory than Apple recommends for your Mac ?!”]