Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink (New York: Penguin Group, December 29, 2009 )

In this book, author Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) makes a strong case for us to upgrade to Motivation 3.0 !
It’s time to #makeTheShift from Profit-driven (Motivation 2.0) to Purpose-driven (Motivation 3.0). He also talks about different types of personalities such as Type X, Type Y, and Type I. He goes onto providing us a toolkit if we want to #transform into Type I personality, along with the list of books that can help us on that journey.

A must-read!

Animate with purpose, don’t motivate with rewards

Three Quotes from the book:

Warning: Goals are Toxic! Goals may cause systemic problems to organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying Goals in your organization.
Sawyer Effect: practices that can either turn play into work or work into play
Motivation 3.0 doesn’t reject profits, but it places equal emphasis on purpose maximization. Employees are not Resources, Employees are Partners

Three tips from the book:

Replace IF…Then motivation with NOW…That.. motivation
Management is a Technology, and we need to update it to new operating system Motivation 3.0
Turn company-wide meetings to FedEx days

Tools/techniques mentioned in the book:

FedEx days
Goldilock Tasks
Now..That rewards
Autonomy Audit
ROWE
Sawyer Effect
20% Time
Flow
Sagmeister / Take [365-day] Sabbatical
Brain Bombs
Take a Page from Webber and a card from your pocket
Make it ‘no competition’ zone

[bctt tweet=”Type I personality draws on resources that are easily replenished, inflict little damage, inexpensive and clean. Are you Type I, Type X, or Type Y? http://bit.ly/2a83ZYV” username=”beyondCSM”]
[tabby title=”TED Video”]

[tabby title=”Type I toolkit”]

Flow Test
Ask BIG question
Ask Small Questions: Small Improvements, Was I better today than yesterday?
Sagmeister – Take [365 day] sabbatical
Performance review: Set smaller goals as well as larger goals
Unstuck by going oblique
Take a Page from Webber and a card from your pocket
Promote Goldilocks for Groups
Convert Offsite to FedEx days

[tabby title=”Books for Type I”]

[tabbyending]

In summary, Type I personality draws on resources that are easily replenished, inflict little damage, inexpensive, and clean.

Question: Are you Type I, Type X, or Type Y?
You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Posted on Tuesday, August 2, 2016

10 Apps for 10x Productivity

Increase Productivity on the Go with these Apps

I introduced you to my top three apps in my earlier post. Let’s continue where we left off, and let me introduced you to remaining apps on my list.

4. Google Photos

10 apps Being Agilist who loves art and doodling, I take a lot of pictures. And, the limited storage space on my mobile devices could be a problem! This is where Google Photos comes to my rescue!

You can configure Google Photos to sync pictures from your mobile device automatically to your Google Drive. With auto sync configured, I can take a picture and my mobile device automatically uploads that to my Google account. Oh! by the way, Google gives you unlimited storage space for this auto sync!

The advantage is that you don’t need to keep on all those pictures on your mobile device. You can take as many pictures as you want, and they are always available to you from any device, anywhere, anytime!

5. iTalk

iTalk I use this app to record audio on my mobile when I have the sudden burst of creativity when you don’t have paper and pencil handy. You don’t want to slow down in those moments, you want to take notes at the Speed of thoughts! iTalk is my go-to app when I am having these bursts of creativity! All you have to do is talk into your mobile and capture those thoughts.

This app also connects to your Dropbox account allowing you to ‘extend’ storage on your mobile device. You record and it pushes it to your Dropbox! Once recorded, you can hire someone else to transcribe it. This way you could be ‘writing’ your article on the go while waiting at the airport lounge or while stuck in the traffic. Record your thoughts using iTalk, push it to Dropbox, and get more Done!

I use this workflow a lot! I record my thoughts, push the audio recording to my Virtual Assistant (VA) and he transcribes those notes yielding initial draft for my article.

Record your thoughts + Upload to Dropbox + Push to VA = First draft of your article

6. Trello

Trello With Trello, you can create your own Kanban board and use them to collaborate with your teams. Create different cards and move them around based on the priorities. There are no emails to send back and forth. You can add notes, checklists, as well as documents. You can even filter your cards based on specific tags or labels.

Essentially, Trello can become your work hub, where you organize your backlog, communicate with your team members, and orchestrate the development of your Minimum Marketable Product (MMP). And, you can be doing all these on the Go as well!

I use the mobile app all the time on my iPhone. This allows me to stay in touch with my team members constantly. As I mention earlier, I push my audio notes to my virtual assistant (VA) all the way to the other side of the world; using a Trello card on a board that I have shared with my team members.

7. Expensify

Expensify This app has been my savior many times. Benefits of Using this app are manyfold:

Minimize the use of the paper
Often times I’m traveling for work and need to capture all the expenses. Just capture them quickly with this app, with the picture of the paper receipt and few details to categorize them appropriately. At the end of the week (or month), Expensify can generate a report and that becomes your expense report.
It also helps me at the end of the year when it is Tax time! The first thing I do for tax filing is going to my Expensify account and download all the expenses for that year. All you have to do is download a report that gives you all the expenses categorized and ready to go into your Tax form.

8. Key Ring

Keyring We all have ‘fat’ wallets! Unfortunately, instead of money, they are filled with all the plastic cards :-Did you know, average American carries 17 plastic cards in his/her wallet. You can move all those cards to an electronic world as well, using Key Ring app. Just add your cards into Key Ring and trash all those physical plastic cards, unflatten your wallet, and get rid of that back pain!

9. Google Drive (Google Docs)

Google Drive / Google Docs I use Google Docs extensively for all my notes, documents, and spreadsheets. As we all know Google Docs is all cloud based solution and allows you to collaborate with your team members. Google gives you considerable amount of space for free that is more than enough for most of us

10. IFTTT (If This Then That)

IFTTT-If this Then that IFTTT allows me to get rid of some of the repetitive tasks from my day. It allows me to delegate and automate some of that mundane task. Using simple recipes, you can automate most of the routine tasks. Use it and you will fall in love with it!

To Summarize…

Here is my list of 10 apps that can launch you into the world of Hyper Productivity.

Evernote and One Note
Scannable
Office Lens
Google Photos
iTalk
Trello
Expensify
Key Ring
Google Drive
IFTTT

[bctt tweet=”Get yourself on hyper Productivity lane with these apps http://www.nimeshsoni.com/10-apps-10x-productivity/” username=”beyondCSM”]

Want more highly effective apps, tools, tips to make you more productive! Sign up now!. To read more related article visit: http://bit.ly/29akXEZ and join us on our Facebook pages: mentorME and getHyper.

Creativity Inc – Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace

If you want to emulate anybody’s success, especially if you in the business of creating things, Pixar has to be on the top list. I admired all the movies made by Pixar; I admired the creativity and the storytelling chops they showcase through these movies. But, after reading this book my admiration for this company have grown many folds.

Being an Agilist, I saw many parallels between the creative world of Pixar and my world of Agile. I was surprised and inspired to see that they have been practicing a lot of the Agile principle that we talk about. For example, they use ‘real day’ which is essentially what we call (Sprint) Review or the Demo.

This is one company worth emulating! This could be the ‘bible’ that you are looking for to build and sustain a creative company! This book definitely would be in the front of all the books on my bookshelf.

If Pixar is the hospitals, and movies are the patients, Brain Trust is all the trusted doctors.

Three Quotes from the book:

To be truly creative company, you must start things that will fail
Our people’s intentions are good and they want to solve the problems. Give them the responsibilities, let the mistakes happen, and let the people fix them
Mistakes are inevitable consequences of doing something new, without having them there is no originality

Three tips from the book:

Managers should loosen the control, accept risks, and trust their people
Pull up a chair (and start having conversations, ask open-ended questions).
Ask yourself, what happens when a mistake is found? Whose fault is this? [If this happens, your company is vilifying the failure]

Tools/techniques mentioned in the book:

Daily
Research Trips
Limits
Notes Day
Person week
Bonus check, that is hand written and hand delivered
Pull up a chair (and start having conversations)
Brain Trust
Good Note
Poet’s Loft
5-year social compact
Strategy Pyramid

[bctt tweet=”Find, develop, and support good people and they will find, develop, and support good ideas!” username=”beyondCSM”]

Posted on Tuesday, June 21, 2016

10 Apps for 10x Productivity

Increase Productivity on the Go with these Apps

10 Apps for 10x Productivity

Like it or not, Accept it, we are a mobile society driven by mobiles in our hands and our pockets. Is your mobile device a ‘sink hole’ for your time and productivity? Can we actually use them to increase 10x productivity, on the go!?

Are you ‘wasting’ lot of time on your mobile with Facebook likes and updates, with What’s app and Instagram? Turn the tables! Convert your mobile devices into a productivity magnet, using some of the best productivity apps that I regularly use and highly recommend.

Mobile devices are major part of the strategy for industry leaders like Google, Microsoft and Facebook. We do more and more work on the go using our mobile devices. As you walk to your car, as you walk in the mall, and so on. How many of you have bumped into a person who is so engrossed in his/her phone that doesn’t even care to look at where s/he is headed.

No Texting while Walking!

Use of phone while driving is already illegal in most of the states, if not all of the states. But, now, there are some states which are considering banning the phone use while walking. In New Jersey for example, in a town called Fort Lee police have written hundreds of citations for texting while walking. So make no mistake we are a mobile society. Driven by the mobile, getting more and more work done on the go using mobile devices.

I’m guilty of this as well 🙂 I use mobile to get more and more work done from my daily routine. I have used several apps and constantly experiment with new ones.

10 for 10x Productivity

Let’s talk about the 10 apps that can get you to 10x productivity: apps that help you get more done with minimal effort involved, and of course on the go!

1.Evernote and OneNote

Start with moving your world to Electronic world, and what better way to do that is getting this electronic note taking apps.

I use Evernote for managing my professional life while the OneNote keeps my personal life organized. And in the digital world once in there my notes are available from any device, anywhere. It also helps you reduce the use of paper, in return you are helping to save some trees!

Your back will also thank you as these two note taking apps will help you reduce the size of your backpack! I introduced OneNote to my son also to help him reduce the weight he carries in his backpack. In fact, he extended the functionality and use of it even further. He uses OneNote on his Microsoft Surface, and he can capture hand written notes with the electronic pen!

Very easy to search, and highly collaborative, these note taking apps will take your productivity to next level, almost immediately!

2.Scannable

As you can see, I do a lot of doodling on post-it. I like to draw and doodling allows me to bring two of my passions together: the art and the agile.

I use Post It extensively while explaining concepts or brainstorming on new product offering. I use doodling and sketch when I’m having one on one conversations or explaining new concepts on paper. I can take a picture of these Post It notes, with doodles or my handwritten notes. To do this, put your drawing on a contrasting background, load up your Scannable app, aim and snap!

This app gives you crisp and clear image by automatically eliminating glare and flattening the image. Check some of my doodles here which have been brought to the electronic world using Scannable app.

3.Office Lens

From Microsoft, this app does similar job as Scannable but I use it for specific purpose other than those scanning of documents.

Being an Agilist I’m highly collaborative and often I am at whiteboard explaining various concepts to a team or group of people. I’m using drawings while using different color sharpie pens! Office Lens does a great job of taking white board pictures.

Again, all you do is aim and snap. This app is smart to figure out what is the actual whiteboard area, and automatically pans to get the area appropriately while eliminating glare. The end result is crisp and clear image!

Collaboration + White boarding + Office Lens = Just in Time, Just Enough documentation

[bctt tweet=”Collaboration + White boarding + Office Lens = Just in Time, Just Enough documentation” username=”beyondCSM”]

3 down, and more to come!

I explained the Top 3 of my 10x productivity apps. I will explain the remaining apps in the next installment of this blog post. Until then, experiments with these apps and #getHyper!

[bctt tweet=”Increase Productivity on the Go with these Apps http://www.nimeshsoni.com/10-apps-10x-productivity/” username=”beyondCSM”]

To get more productivity hacks Like us in our Facebook pages: getHyper and mentorMe

Posted on Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Doodling and Visual note taking on ever extending canvas

We talked about Post It notes as my Swiss Knife tool, and I introduced you to the first and THE most important use; that being the Note taking tool.

Today, I want to talk about using it as a Canvas. I have two passions in my life: the Agile Transformation and the Art. The artist within me likes to doodle, and I often come up with some quick illustrations to provide visuals on a topic that I am going to be discussing or presenting. As they say, Picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some of my Agile Doodles.

And, if you are into visual note taking, PostIt notes can also morph into an ever extending canvas. Here is an example.

Visual Note taking with (ever extending) Post It canvas

This was done by a student in one of a workshop on ‘Jump start your Agile teams’, capturing notes about what is Agile and Scrum, all using Post It notes and Visual note taking.

All right, let’s summarize: We discussed three uses of the Post-It notes so far:

Taking notes during discussion and conversations; while still actively participating in them
Canvas for doodling
Ever extending canvas for Visual Notetaking

Go ahead, start doodling! And, share your many ways you use Post Its in the comments section below.