Applying Agile development techniques to managing my own work

Product Management is a multi-facted role. Building roadmaps, thinking of new products, interviewing customers, working with developers, sales, marketing, support, training - the list is endless (I wrote previously about it here).

I recently started using an Agile-like approach to managing my day to day activities. This is what I mean:

1. I have a list of projects I am working on. That could include everything - tactical activities such as 'Sales needs this document for this sales cycle - by this evening' to 'Make progress on customer development on a product that will not be launched for six quarters'

2. Every three weeks I start a new sprint. I reassess and prioritize everything on my plate and have a strict prioritization. Similar to agile sprints, things do pop up. Just like developers might get pulled into emergency issues, requirements etc.

3. I then draw a line - projects that I plan to address in this sprint, and those that I plan to postpone for another day.

4. If I am pressed for time, I postpone projects and tasks from the bottom of the list

5. I track progress each week against each project. If one is getting left behind, and I do need to focus on it, I figure out what else needs to move down to make way for it

6. I refer to this list in my nightly planning, moving around tasks on my kanbanflow board

So far, so good! Things are working out well, and this has really helped me do the difficult task of prioritizing according to goals vs. prioritizing according to what seems most urgent. I will report back on progress in a few weeks.

Why I don't normally listen to the news - but am thankful for journalism

I don't listen to the news. I don't watch CNN, Fox, or any news channel. Occasionally I will glance at the NY times or CNN. Why do you ask? In one word - negativity.

The news media excels in making us aware of all the negative things going in the world. From terrorism, to the obesity epidemic, to the attention deficit order, to floods etc. Hardly ever does one see a positive piece of news. And why so? Negative news sells. Negative news makes people angry, and turn back into the channel. Negative news can be sensationalized.

Now I don't want to pretend that  burying my head in the sand is the answer. But I do think that most people pay too much attention to the news. I find a balance by occasionally glancing at the news, and knowing enough to make important decisions e.g., who to vote for. But that is what I want to limit it to. I would rather spend time with family, read tech blogs, work hard at my job, and generally remain happy, than remain 'informed.'

One exception - the recent Boston acts of terrorism. That is the one time I was thankful for journalists, and news sources such as NPR. Not Twitter, NPR. Why? NPR, and other news outlets check their sources. Twitter was already abuzz with rumours 30 minutes after the incident  12 dead, while only 2 people were confirmed dead. And so on and so forth.

So thanks for journalism and the news media for keeping us informed when it counts. In most other days though, I shall continue to ignore 90% of what you say.

A commitment experiment

I am conducting a new commitment experiment. Here is how it is going to work: for the next 4 weeks, I am on a strict diet. I have one cheat day per week; other than that, my diet consists of no bread, pasta, rice etc. Its all meat and vegetables. I am allowed tea and coffee and a small dessert at night. Everytime I break this contract, I will:


1. Post it on my Diet Log page

2.  Donate five dollars to something I do not like - for example, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign (that will also ensure that my wife watches my eating habits closely!)

Will keep everyone posted on how it goes!

GTD rediscovered

I have always been a pretty organized person when it comes to by Todo list is concerned; I know exactly what I need to accomplish each day, how much time I need etc. But recently I re-read the classic book 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. I discovered some key aspects of GTD I had been neglecting:

1. The main purpose of GTD is to free you of thoughts about the small tasks that still need to be accomplished, so that you can focus on the one thing you are doing right then. That can be only done if you know that the other small things are captured, and will be reviewed and taken care of according to priority. That means - pick a task, and keep going till you get it done. Don't look at your task list to optimize every single moment of life. If you are reviewing a presentation say, and it takes a minute to save, don't open the task list to see if you can get anything done within that one minute. Breathe, chill and continue to work on the task. Actually closing the browser tab that shows my Todo list (I use toodledo) helps me take my mind off other tasks as well.

2. Another big change I have made is organizing tasks by context. So if I am at an airport waiting for my flight, I can look up my context called 'Phone Call,' and make the phone calls that I have been neglecting. This also hides all the tasks that cannot be done at that moment; so my task for 'Pick up Dry Cleaning,' which has a context of 'Tasks near Home' does not show up at work.

3. I also stopped using due dates unless absolutely necessary. Before this, I would 'guess' a due date for a task, then be disappointed if I did not completely finish the task. Now I just set start dates - dates before which I will not begin working on the task. Then I make a decision on what task to do based on what context I am in, how much energy I have etc. This has helped me get the unnecessary pressure off me, and allowed me to focus on just doing whatever I can during the day. And paradoxically, I am getting more done!

4. I also have 75 odd tasks in the 'Someday/Maybe' list. Things that I would love to do, but cannot do so at the current time. These include 'Write a Book.' Just knowing that I am capturing this information, and review it periodically to see if I can bring them into the active task list keeps them off my mind.

5. Most importantly, I have started focusing on the Next Action. Let's take an example of a task from my task list below, which said 'File taxes.' And then I will wait till close to the deadline before even getting started. Why? Well there are a substantial number of moving parts. Now File taxes is a project, which has a sequence of tasks that includes 'Find W-2s', 'Collect 1099 forms', 'Enter tax data', 'Review' etc. They key is that the Next Action in a project should be the next physical action you are going to take, and not a fuzzy goal with several tasks yet to be figured out.


So GTD is great; but I do want to mention a major pitfall. GTD has the potential of making you a task completing machine. Have a few minutes while walking from the bus stop to home? Find some task to do! But slightly changing what  William Henry Davies said, "We must make time to stand and stare."

Define your reality

I continue to be more and more influenced 'Happiness at Work.' One of the concepts that the book lays out is of 'Alternative realities.' The basic premise is that there is no matter how you look at the world, it is one reality, not the reality. You can change your mental model - or how you look at the world - and change what you define as your reality.

An example; I woke up the other day worried about all the things I needed to do that day. I hurriedly got to my computer, started answering emails, doing whatever I could to get the quick tasks done soon so that I have a manageable workload. In reality, I was far behind.

But then I got a reminder email for one ritual I have established - called the morning quiet time. I spend at least 15 quiet minutes every morning, either just sitting with a notebook, reflecting and writing my thoughts down, or reading some notes from on Evernote, which contain some daily reminder. I do this with a beverage (typically chai and coffee, not a bloody mary:)). I look outside, enjoy looking at the morning sunrise, look around in the room, at the cat who is typically either begging for food or sunbathing! This routine helps me slow down, and defined my an alternative reality. Which this day was, that I had 10 urgent tasks to take care of, but only 2 important ones. And if the urgent tasks did not get done - really nothing significant would change. I might have a few responses go out later, a blog post written one day later. And there was more than enough time to do the two important tasks. Life was good!

Whether I am able to carry on this routine when I have to travel for work again - that remains to be seen. It might happen later in the day - but I am committed to this short, but precious quiet time. The time to define my reality.

Why we procrastinate

I started reading a book on procrastination. Unfortunately I kept putting reading more off :)

Now that I finally read more, we procrastinate -

• Not because we are lazy
• Because we might fear failure
• Because completing the task might lead to more work
• Because we feel that we are being forced to do the work - we talk to ourselves as if its not our choice
• Focus on the end of the project - which is especially overwhelming if the project is large
• We are perfectionists and are not willing to accept anything less than perfect - which raises the bar and makes us procrastinate

I wanted to write more, but I am feeling lazy,...

Think Neutral

I remember this workshop from the 2008 NetIP conference called - the Laughing Club. It was led by a Boston based Entrepreneur Sushil Bhatia. I remember one of the things he emphasized - called 'Think Neutral.'

The reason that I remembered that was because of a book that I am reading called 'Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful - No Matter What' by Srikumar Rao, who teaches the Personal Mastery course at Columbia Business School. Dr. Rao first talks about the pitfalls of conventional wisdom i.e. positive thinking. We are always taught that we must think positive, and then the positive things will happen to us. But this pressure to think positive adds stress to our lives. Every time we have to force ourselves to look at a negative thing with a positive perspective, which is stressful, and uses our mental energy.

Dr. Rao presents an alternative - just stop using the label bad and good, or positive and negative. It is actually very hard to judge whether something is positive or negative until much further in the future. For example, let's say you are an entrepreneur and an investor decided not to fund your startup. It could be negative, because you don't have the funds you want. But it might be positive for several reasons; one it might give you a chance to fix the reasons why you are not getting funded. Or this investor wasn't the right one for your startup. Or you figure out how to make things work for now and three months later get funded at a much higher valuation.

The point is, we don't really know if its positive or negative. So let's stop using these labels, and instead, think neutral.Observe what happens to you but do not get emotionally swayed. Don't lose your sense of peace. Harder said than done, but let's atleast try.

3 steps to new habits

3 Steps to New Habits

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