Category: scrum

4 things you need to know about executing on your ideas

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Good ideas come to us all every day, passing by like clouds in the sky. However, a relatively few number of people manage to act on them effectively. 

We drive home from work, are struck with inspiration, pat ourselves on the back and move on. 

Our business, 3D Print Western is built upon turning out ideas on a daily basis, and below is a trick that helps us find success. 

1. Develop a low friction way to capture your ideas.

Inspiration can happen anytime and anywhere. And not long after it occurs, it can just as easily be gone. 

You need a quick and easy way to capture those fleeting gems. A few tools that I use  and keep with me at all times are Siri on my iPhone, and a notebook specifically for capturing ideas. 

Using Siri on your iPhone or iPad 

  1. Press and hold the “home” button on your iPhone or iPad. 
  2. Say “take a note”
  3. Siri will automatically place your dictation in your Notes app. 


My favorite notebook for capturing ideas

Rhodia is highly ranked and recommended amongst paper enthusiasts, which I am not. But if you scour the enthusiast websites for superior stationary – Rhodia is a recurring theme. 

For me, the paper quality is great, and I feel good knowing that technically astute paper aficionados have given it the thumbs up. 


2. Determine what your filter is for selecting ideas to execute on

Wired magazine co-founder and technologist, Kevin Kelly has a great filter that he uses when deciding on projects to embark on. 

Picture a Venn diagram with 3 circles intersecting. In order to embark on a project, the three criteria must be true:

  • Something that people need 
  • Something that I’m good at
  • Can or will anybody else do it

For the third point, you may have an idea that is marginally better than anything else that is currently available. But decide on a filter that makes sense in order to help you prioritize and vet which ideas to take action on. 

3. Begin with the end in mind and work backwards

As Einstein famously noted, if you can’t explain something simply you do not understand it well. 

Begin by describing your idea in great detail as if it has already happened. 

  • What does it look like? 
  • Who uses it?
  • How do they use it?
  • When and where do they use it?
  • Where do they buy it?
  • How do you sell it to them?
  • How do you make it?

If you cannot answer these types of questions, you will need to do some creative thinking in order to paint a clear picture for yourself. 

4. Decide on your first step

At our company we work in 2 week worlds using Sprints to break down larger projects. 

Once you have fleshed out your idea, you want to determine the first step, and lowest cost method to validate it as soon as possible. 

The best way to validate an idea is to see if someone would be willing to write you a cheque. If it is not an idea that you intend to monetize, decide on a different metric that would help provide quantifiable feedback for you. Give yourself a target of 1 month to get a website or Facebook page up and see if you can get anyone to take action.

Thanks to services like Shopify, Etsy, WordPress templates and Facebook storefronts, it is getting easier and easier for anyone to start a business or create a product or service for next to zero upfront cost. 

Whatever your big ideas, working through these 4 simple steps will help allow you to turn them into reality. 

3 Things Triathlon Can Teach You About Agile

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This June will mark 4 years since I took on the audacious challenge of completing my first full Ironman triathlon in the South of France. To this day, I don’t know how I managed to cross the finish line albeit in a tortoise-like time of nearly 14 hours. 

It still feels like a fluke that I completed the task, and I don’t put myself in the category of the true Ironman athletes that seem to have this epic race down to a fine science.

Breakdown of the race

The race which takes place in Nice, France every year in June breaks down as follows:

The swim

You begin with a 3.8km open water swim starting from the beach in the Mediterranean. They have it structured so that you complete two giant loops. 

  
The bike

The bike course runs 180km with an immediate 3,600 ft ascent into the Alps followed by a quick descent back into the city. 

  

The run

The race is completed with 4 laps along the Promenade in Nice totaling 42.2km.

  
As mentioned previously, I am a complete amateur when it comes to challenges like this one. But the lessons learned which I apply daily in the business world are priceless. 

1. Focus on small daily habits without losing sight of the big picture
We operate 4 businesses comprised of selling and servicing various equipment, as well as a 3D Print manufacturing business. Very few days in our world are the same, and it makes for a very dynamic environment to work in every day. 
Our primary tool that we use to help execute daily, and meet our clients’ ever changing needs is an agile approach sometimes referred to as scrum. All this means is that we work in 2 week sprints, focusing on projects that will deliver maximum value in the marketplace. 

How it works:

The teams

We work in cross functional self-managed teams of 4-6

Sprint planning

At the start of each two week sprint, we select and define a handful of stories which have been prioritized and defined, and which we think we can accomplish within that two week period. 

Daily stand-up meetings (these are the swim strokes)

Following that we meet every morning, same place, same time for no more than 15 minutes to check in on daily progress. 

These daily meetings are the swimming strokes where we try daily to perfect our technique, minimize effort finding that path of least resistance (often through automation, and leveraging already proven methods). 

Sprint retrospectives (This is where you sight your course)

At the end of each sprint, we review the work that has been completed. We have been following this method for nearly two years now, and in that time I have observed a common area where teams struggle. They focus on the daily swim strokes, but forget to look up at the target, see if anything has changed, reposition based on new information and course correct. 

If you focus, just on “Getting things done” every day, but forget to pick your head up and reorient yourself often, there is a very good chance that you could be swimming in the wrong direction. 

2. Don’t underestimate the importance of morale

Hopping on a bike for 7 hours after a 3.8km swim is a hard thing to wrap your head around. I can’t imagine completing this task without having a solid mindset in tact. 

The only way, I could overcome this challenge was to keep my attitude in check, focusing on gratitude, and a little bit of dishonest self-talk. Mantras like “I feel amazing” or “this road is gorgeous” or “man am I lucky to be biking in France” got me through 7 grueling hours in the mountains. 

The same holds true in our workplace. We start our meetings off with a positive focus, sharing good news or small wins. Another way that we keep our morale in check is through peer driven micro-bonuses. Our teams each receive 50 points every month which can be spent on team members when they demonstrate any of our core values. Points can then be used to  buy things like Amazon gift cards or company swag. (We use a tool called bonus.ly – definitely worth checking out)

Cultivating a positive mindset helps get us through any challenge that comes our way.

3. Focus on progress not perfection

9 hours into the race I dismounted off my bike, and wearily changed into my runners to take on the last part of the race which was the marathon. I can remember seeing people on the side of the course in stretchers getting treated for exhaustion and feeling envious of them getting to lay down. At this point of the race, I probably drank a liter of Coke just to keep myself conscious. There was only one tactic that kept me moving forward, and that was to focus on one step at a time. 

Every step forward represented progress, and I knew that if I could continue putting one foot in front of the other, eventually I would make it. 

The same is true in business. Many days are going to be a challenge, and in the moment your goals may seem completely unlikely and irrational. As a result, we keep our daily goals small and focus on progress not perfection. If you’ve taken one step forward it’s been a good day.