Thanks to Ine, I now have this place www.hanoulle.be

Thanks for  growing this blog with me.

Yves

http://www.hanoulle.be/2010/03/perfection-game-sdc-2010/

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We want our kids to give an option to keep connected with their friends in their current school.
As we have young kids, we will select a social network that we set the privacy rules.

Instead of sending out messages to the whole wide world as I’m doing on Twitter or facebook, we want to make sure what they write is limited to a very select number of people.

What do you think is the best Social network for this?

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net or follow me on Twitter

I have moved this blogpost to my new blog

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2010/01/agile-retroflection-of-the-day-version-3/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2010/01/10-agile-books/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2010/01/agile-retroflection-of-the-day-2-0/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2010/01/agile-retroflection-of-the-day/

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I once had a Dutch speaking customer that toughed I was French speaking and he had a hard time speaking French to me.
I was originally Dutch speaking and I had worked very hard to become better in French, so my ego liked it that he could not hear it was my second language. I kept talking French to him, and I proudly told it during lunch with my colleague’s.
I don’t remember what my boss said, but he made it clear that I should not do this again, I should help the customer instead of making fun of them/ using them for my own ego. Although he did bring it very subtle, it‘s a message I never forgot.

Fast forward to yesterday.

I was invited to do my talk about self-organizing teams at Agilis 2009 in Iceland. Tickets, hotel booked.

My flight was leaving in Brussels at 16:00 (4 PM) going to Heathrow, where another flight leaving at 21:00 would bring me to Reykjavik.

By coincidence (does that exist?), I have accepted a position of agile coach, helping a large corporation in the UK. During the week I am in Staines, which is about 10 miles from Heathrow.

So today I need to go from Staines to Brussels, take a plane to Heathrow and fly to Reykjavik from there. I would need to leave Staines at about 8:30, to take a plane at 21:00 from 10 miles where I am.

Mmm, I know some things about removing impediments and waste.
What if I skip my first flight. And go on the second one.

So a few weeks ago I contacted my airline by their website. No answer for 1 week. I guess something went wrong as I never got a message they received my message. (Ok that could be my mistake, so I won’t hold it against them. Still if a website makes it hard to ask a question, that is a sign/smell to me)
After about 1 week I tried again, now I got a receive message. And an answer that I needed to contact my booking agent.

Mmm, they told me I had to contact the airline. I replied that. (And checked back with my travel agent)

To cut a long story short, after about 6 or 7 e-mails (and a lot of time) they finally gave me a number where I could contact them directly. (I could not find it on the website.)
When I called the number it was even better, it was one of those electronic helpdesk systems that supposed to help you find the correct persons quickly.
Only I never seem to know what to press. Is this just me?

Now it had options to:

- information before buying a ticket
- buy a ticket
- check-in
-etc

Of course my situation is special. So no options is made for that. Aren’t most call’s special? If it would have been a “normal” case, the information would be in the FAQ.  Ok not many people read these. Also in software, people call quicker then reading the manual.
Having an option, to talk to an operator press x would already be a good step (now this option was hidden behind at least three or four other selections)

First time I tried when I selected an option ==> Busy statement and my call was interrupted.
Second time, I got disconnected when I had explained my situation to a male person. (Not sure if it was my phone, the system or the operator)

The third time I finally got a person that took my situation seriously.
She let me wait a little and then explained that my flight was actually not serviced by their airline, but by another one, so she would not be be able to help me.

(If all these people answering mails had looked my flight up, I would not have wasted time with their airline (wasting both their and my time).

So calling to the new airline. This one only had a Belgium number (I was in Staines when I made the calls) (Which was funny for an international airline.)

For Dutch or English press 1, for French press 2.

1

I explain my situation in Dutch. Sorry sir could you speak English? Euh I pressed 1. Yes I only speak English. OK no problem I speak English, but another sign off bad communication. (It’s fine not to have that option, but when you have the option, be sure you support it.)

After about 5 minutes:
It is not possible to refund your ticket.

I’m not asking for a refund. I’m asking to skip a flight.
No there will be a problem with your luggage, you can’t check that in in London. mmm strange. Ok I don’t need much luggage. I’ll take everything on the plane.

No it is not possible.
Your only option is to cancel the whole flight (including return flight). And buy two separate one way tickets. (One leaving in London)

- London-Reykjavik
- Reykjavik-Brussels

Not sure about the cost price, probably about 2 to 3 times the original ticket. (which I would loose on top of that.) Mmm I don’t think the conference will pay that.

So much for customer service. Airlines are dictated by their software which says if you miss one part of the flight everything else is cancelled.

What are my other options:

- I could stay home on Monday and not help my client, but then they would suffer even more from this situation
- I could cancel my trip to the conference. Now that clients suffers from the lack of customer service from one of my suppliers.

Mmm, I could explain it, it would make a good excuse, but I prefer to take the responsibility myself.

Let’s go to London and go back on Tuesday, I might even be at a morning meeting on Tuesday.

So now I have to book another ticket to go from London-Brussels.
And this is where things become interesting.

I book a train with the Eurostar to go back to Brussels. Unfortunately I make a mistake and I buy a non-refundable ticket to return Monday instead of Tuesday. I notice this while I want to check in to go to Brussels last Friday.  (About 30 minutes after I bought the ticket.)

Now I’m sure I made the mistake (I still hear myself saying Monday at xxx hour.)
So I go back to the desk. I explain my situation, the lady is very friendly she advises me to talk to the same persons that has sold me the ticket.

When I got to that person I explain that I bought it for the wrong day. I’m expect to be told I need to buy a new ticket. (I was a non-refundable ticket after all)

Nope: Oh sure sir, he tears my ticket apart, so when did you wanted to leave?

Tuesday? At the same time? Do you want to sit again at a table near the window?
5 minutes later I’m out of there with my new ticket. And my old return ticket (Brussel-Londen) is still valid.

Thank you Eurostar. That is what I call customer service.
And they do this all the way. I’m typing this on that train from London to Brussels. My computer is hooked up to the electricity net. No I don’t have to be in First class to have this. Eurostar recognizes that electricity is a basic need on a long trip. Just as they offer that in London in the waiting room. (In most airports I almost have to fight to use an electricity plug.) [Edited in Heathrow, lot’s of electricity here also]

Could they improve? yes. And I’m sure they will over the next years (I have some idea’s)

But they are far ahead of the airline in the first part of my story.

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net or follow me on Twitter

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/11/what-i-learned-from-burning-down-my-house/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/11/pairprogramming-is-like-sex/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/11/why-we-dont-have-negative-experience-reports-at-agile-conferences/

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• my introduction 
• my first post on the check-in protocol.

This link should give you all the post’s I’m blogging there.

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net or follow me on Twitter

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/how-to-make-your-retrospective-the-heart-of-your-agile-process/

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I’m just back from Toronto where I did two workshops next to AgileTourToronto.
Last day was AgileGameDay. A whole day of playing games to learn serious stuff.

The reasons for me behind these games is similar to what these people want.
Use the brain the way a kid does to learn new behavior.
If you want to learn about agile while having fun, feel free to contact me.

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net or follow me on Twitter

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/tired-of-long-meetings-without-decisions/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/the-storming-phase-of-the-agile-it-world/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/10-deploys-per-day-dev-and-ops-cooperation-at-flickr/

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http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/the-power-of-the-junior-on-the-team/

Yves

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/facilitating-the-skill-of-multiple-partiality/

y

Agile Tour Geneve (12 october) http://www.agiletour.org/fr/at2009_geneve.html
Agile Tour Toronto (20 october) http://www.agiletour.org/fr/at2009_toronto.html
Agile Tour Bordeaux (29 October) http://agiletour.org/fr/at2009_bordeaux.html

XP Days Benelux (23-24November – Benelux) www.xpday.net  
XP Days London (7-8 December- London) http://www.xpday.org

Going to Toronto for just one day, is pretty

• silly
• dedicated
• expensive
• …

 
So I decided to deliver two Agile Courses in Toronto. In Michael Sahota of agilitrix I found the perfect partner to help me with this.
Both will be given in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Toronto (the same hotel as where the Agile Tour event is taking place)

Agile Kick Start (19/10/2009)
This course is for:

• People who are new to agile
• People who want to prepare for the Agile Tour Toronto
• Certified Scrum Masters that want to learn about that other pillar of the agile called XP
• XP practitioners that want replace some XP practices with other things, without loosing the values behind the practices they replace.
• Agile practitioners that never read the first edition of the famous white Extreme Programming Explained book
• Agile Coaches that have never played the XP Game

Read more

Order here

Agile Games Day (21/10/2009)

Define the Business Value
Fact: Determining the Business Value is an important aspect of an agile project
Fact: Learning that from a book is impossible
Fact: The Business Value Game is the fastest way to learn this

Understand Self-Organizing Teams
Fact: Self-organizational teams are important for agile
Fact: Most people have NO experience with a self-organizing team
Fact: The Leadership Game lets you experience the difference between a command and control, self-organizing and a process led team.

Theory of Constraints
Fact: Every project has a bottleneck that limits productivity
Fact: Most people don’t know how to eliminate a bottleneck to go faster
Fact: The game “I’m not a bottleneck, I’m a free man” will teach you how to apply the Theory of Constraints

Learn Quickly
Fact: Humans learn fastest when they are playing.
Fact: The Agile game day combines 3 famous agile games
Have Fun
Fact: You’ll have fun
Fact: You will learn a lot

This course is for:

– People new to agile.
- Agilists struggling with one of these concepts
- Agile Coaches that look for new ways to explain these concepts to there customers/developers.

The three games have been played all around the world on multiple agile events.
They are now grouped as a one day event for the first time.
Read more

Order here

If you are a participant of Agile Tour Toronto or are on their waiting list, we offer you a discount of 10% when you use this code: 014756401953
Both courses are for a maximum of 20 people. Meals are included.

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net or follow me on Twitter

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/10/01/how-to-work-with-a-whiteboard-with-a-distributed-team/

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/09/i-propose-we-replace-best-practise-by-great-practise/

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http://paircoaching.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/the-slides-of-my-talk-at-agileee/

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Jared said Apple used that video internally to take decisions.

Remember this was invisioned before the internet existed, even before cellphone’s.

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company .net or follow me on Twitter

I will be talking at Agile Eastern Europe about leadership (18-20 Sep 2009 Kiev)
http://www.agileee.org/

The same talk I will be giving on the Agile Tour in Geneve (12 october 2009)
http://www.agiletour.org/fr/at2009_geneve.html

Agile Tour Toronto
I get a lot of mails from their wiki. The perfection games are well on their way. Deadline is today.
http://agiletour.org/fr/at2009_toronto.html
http://www.torontoagilecommunity.org/

Agile Tour China (24 October 2009 Chengdû)
I have proposed my Leadership game, I’m not sure what are the visa regulations to go to China, so I will probably not go there.
http://agiletour.org/fr/at2009_chengdu.html

Agile Tour Bordeaux (29 October 2009)
After the successful playing of the leadership game at Agile 2009, my leadership game got accepted here.
http://agiletour.org/fr/at2009_bordeaux.html

Devopsdays ’09 30 & 31 October, Ghent, Belgium
the conference that tries to get the best of both dev and ops world.
two days of fun and interesting talks.
I haven’t decided yet if I go to this one. The organizer Pascal Debois is a very passionate guy, that I like very much. The idea of putting developers and system administrators together I love. Its not really an agile conference, but it definitely will be a great event. If I be here or not will depend of the project I will be doing at that moment.
http://www.devopsdays.org/

Improvisation for Agile Coaches (21 November 2009 London To be confirmed)
As this is so close to the XP Days in Benelux, I’m not sure I’ll make it to this.
http://www.agilecoachesgathering.org/wiki/index.php/Home

XP Days Benelux (23-24November 2009 Mechelen)
The program has not been announced yet. Even if none of my 3 sessions are accepted I will be here.
www.xpday.net

XP Days London (7-8 December 2009- London)
Nothing announced here. I will also go there even when no sessions get accepted. 
http://www.xpday.org

Oh and somewhere in between there might be an Agile Coaches Camp tour be organized. Not sure if that idea still lives after Agile 2009.

This are just the agile conferences I’m going to. Check out this Agile Conference google calendar for more:

http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/hanoulle.be/embed?src=hanoulle.be_vhhuilrdov5hiodkhauquvp7eg%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Brussels

If you want to add a conference to this calendar, ask me.

I  am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can reach me at blog at my training company  .net or follow me on Twitter

http://www.hanoulle.be/2009/09/i-finished-reading-the-agile-coaching-book/

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I was afraid that people would not show up or walk away. They did show up and instead of people walking of, more people joined.

(To be exact some people warned me up front they would not be able to play for 3 hours as they had to catch a plane.)

The fact that people stayed to finish the game, reminded me of the edition at the first XP Day Paris,

where the players refused to go to the closing note of the XP day. They preferred to hear all their colleagues remarks.

We have already played this to a lot of different people, like medical students. This was the first time, we had a minor playing the game. And a courageous one too. Kevin volunteered to be one of the coaching leaders. Unfortunately he had to leave before the feedback. Which is one of he most important part of the game (especially for the leaders.). Anyway it took a lot of guts to do that which a bunch of hard headed geeks.

This is also the first time that people used the internet to look up pictures of the monument they wanted to build.

Open Jam was a nice place to play this, the enthusiasm of the players attracts more players. The bad thing is that there was too much noise in the Open Jam for the meetings and the retrospective part of the game. Anyway I was happy with this edition of the game and I received nice feedback from people I have big respect for.

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can mail me: blog at my training company  .net

My three questions:

1 What have I finished yesterday.

2 What do I commit to finish today

3 Where do I need help?

==>So these are a little bit different as the ones from Jean.

I don’t make the link between what I promised yesterday and what I have done yesterday. Because it might be that I have done something totally different. If it is there is a smell. I could answer her question and not talk about other stuff I have done. (Difficult to know Jean’s idea in a 4 minute video).
My question also does not tackle the smell directly. It does offer the team to react if what is said yesterday and today is not in sync.

With 2, I completely agree with Jean. It’s about commitment, not just about what will I try to do. I’ m only interested in what you want to finish today.

My 3 is bigger then Jean’s. I don’t need to be stuck to need help. Actually I want team members to ask quicker for help. Before they actually get stuck.

Also it avoids the difficult definition of ‘stuck’. (Some people only see them selfs stuck when they don’t find a solution for a week…)

Next to that I agree completely with Jean. If you want more advice like that, read her great book about facilitating an agile team:

Collaboration Explained

I am Yves Hanoulle, your virtual Project coach and you can mail me: blog at my training company  .net