Month: January 2011

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Brief aan mijn psycholoog (levensbeschouwing)

Dag wereld, dag familie

Het gaat goed met ons, dank u. 2010 gaf het gevoel van een ommekeer. Maar mijn indrukwekkend weifeltwijfelachtigende zelfneurologische systeem wil daar bewijzen van. En dus zocht ik naar de Hoogtepunten van 2010. En van het eerste decennium van de 21e eeuw. En, eenmaal diepgravend bezig, van mijn leven so far (dat ronde getal 40, weet u).

1/ Het voorbije 2010 bracht nieuw werk en een derde kind (dochter, geen draagster van Duchenne). Maar het duwde me ook in het soort Project Wars waar ik van verlost wilde zijn. Gelukkig vonden we een (fantastische, zo bleek) nieuwe school voor Jente en groeide het uitzicht om mij professioneel op en top aan Agile/Scrum te wijden.

2/ Een hoogmis van licht was 2010 na een decennium dat vooral dood, kanker en verderf had gebracht. Ondanks 2 geboortes overheersten sterftes, oneindige miserie en de schrapping van grootouderlijke aanwezigheid op aard’ (for better or for worse). En de aanhoudende zoektocht naar FUN werk leidde me van gestoorde chaos naar de hel.

3/ Na een leven dat me geboren deed worden, me naar een middelbare school bracht, een ongeluk van zo-goed-als-dood deed onbeleven maar ook liet voortstuderen. Allemaal onder de agressieve terreur van een alcoholieker van een gruwel die zich ‘vader’ dacht te mogen noemen. Gelukkig kwam een vrijgevlogen prachtvogel me bevrijden naar prachtige (alhoewel soms keiharde) jaren van ontdekking, en een boekenwinkel die niet volstond voor een voldoende levensonderhoud.

En zo kreeg ik een exponentieel tijdsoverzicht van 1970-2010:

Daarna schetste ik er de grafiek van bruto persoonlijk geluk bij. Bewijs van een onbetekenende jeugd (alle potentieel de kop ingeslagen door mister Gruwel), negatief culminerend in 100% verlies, maar gevolgd door de steil opwaartse stuwing door de vogel. En dan, aha, blijkt uit de grafiek een dwingende koersstijging na de beschreven neerwaartse decennialiteiten. En een positieve winstwaarschuwing voor Q2 2011…

°levensles De grafiek bewijst dat er geen rechtstreeks evenredige overeenkomst is tussen bruto persoonlijk geluk en inkomen..

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Why I loved going to the PSM Course

Early December 2010 I went to a Professional Scrum Master (II) course in Zürich, taught by Ken Schwaber and facilitated by Zühlke Engineering. Already being a PSM II, I went mostly to see Ken and to look to improve my own teaching skills. And it was a very enjoyable event!

Ken and the ScrumAlliance parted in 2009 leading to Ken establishing Scrum.org. As an outsider I don’t care about the circumstances or the rumors surrounding this. I’m only concerned with the profession of Scrum, that I have now been practicing for 7 years and for which I truly believe that Agile is finally crossing the chasm in the lowlands of Belgium and The Netherlands (and other parts of our old continent of Europe).

And I can only conclude that Ken has learned his lessons by:

  • Separating course attendance from assessment/certification;
  • Incorporating community feedback;
  • Creating a development course and for Scrum Teams in general;
  • Setting up a Product Owner program with a separate assessment;
  • Upgrading the PSM course material.

For the latter I can testify that a number of topics were already treated in my CSM by Ken in 2004, but new stuff and ideas have been included far better than in recent CSM course material that I compared it to.

What I strongly like in Ken’s teaching is his holistic perspective on Scrum, like the spirit of the Scrum Guide that he co-wrote with Jeff Sutherland. His courses go well beyond the formal mechanics of Scrum. It’s much more about why Scrum works, its psychology, the positive thinking, the social aspects. And the empirical foundation of Scrum to help us not even trying to predict the unpredictable. And beyond the theory, luckily, Ken has tons of stories and cases to share with the training participants.

This PSM course has certainly inspired me in my teaching of the Scrum Trainings that I launched at Capgemini. At a considerable scale of internal participants and geographical spread. Hoping that I can open these trainings to external audiences, and maybe even as PSM Trainer…

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Running

I use iTunes playlists for new perspectives on my music collection, but also in support of my running efforts (‘results’ at RunKeeper).

What struck me during my most recent run -8,87 km and 58min30- is how the base BPM of Too Many Puppies*, from my Desperately Dispersed collection of nostalgia, feeds my natural running rhythm. Other highlights are the The Lemonheads‘ version of Mrs. Robinson that starts some euphoria, although it is Calienté, the Revolting Cocks‘ version of the Bauhaus classic Dark Entries (those cajun accelerations…), that completely bans all pain and feet suffering:

  • Alors On Danse -Stromae, 3:28
  • Zanna -Luc van Acker (with Anna Domino), 3:09
  • Renegade Soundwave -Renegade Soundwave, 3:53
  • Love Missile F1-11 -Sigue Sigue Sputnik, 3:47
  • Too Many Puppies -Primus, 3:57
  • La Gueule Du Loup -Daan, 2:57
  • Alors On Danse (Extended Mix) -Stromae, 4:18
  • Living Is So Easy -British Sea Power, 3:13
  • Time Bomb -Rancid, 2:24
  • Ruby Soho -Rancid, 2:38
  • Mrs. Robinson -The Lemonheads, 3:46
  • Duel -Propaganda, 4:48
  • Calienté (Dark Entries) -Revolting Cocks, 4:27
  • Rattlesnakes -Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, 3:26
  • Shout -Tears for Fears, 6:32
  • Zeus -British Sea Power, 4:29

* Still feel that Primus was the most convincing with the ‘Sailing The Seas Of Cheese’ full album.

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Top 2010 Music

Top 1

My absolute number 1 album of 2010 was made by absolute oldies revisiting 30 years of absolute musical top history and upgrading that into an absolutely refreshing top piece of modern rock: Killing Joke with Absolute Dissent. The absolute fierceness of Pandemonium and subsequent recordings combined with highly Night-time‘ish danceable bass lines and melodies that take them out of the pure fuzz and chaos from the basements of hell back into the early land of dub and dark disco. Celebrating the return of an absolute icon drummer. An emotional goodbye to The Raven King (who unknowingly re-united the original band). In Excelsis indeed…

Top 6

Completing my top 2010 albums are:

2) Grinderman – Grinderman 2: an unexpectedly varied album from a well-oiled band of howling friends, sharing wolfman fantasies and slapping melodic tales across weeping violins

3) Jonsi – Go: a vivid flow of natural love, an uptempo scream full of desire to live and to enjoy… joy

4) RPA & The United Nations of Sound: the newest incarnation of Richard Ashcroft wanders off into soul, funk and unexpected guitar solo’s

5) Tired Pony – The place we ran from: an incarnation of Gary Lightbody wanders with a bunch of talented friends off into deserted American sceneries with some folky country music. A place to run to…

6) David Bowie – The Reality Tour: one artist wandered in 2003 off into all of his incarnations with a splendid collection of superbly performed hit songs

Somewhat different

I love Editors for releasing some magnificent EP’s to follow up their In This Light And On This Evening, adding special editions and new experiments on You don’t know love and Eat raw meat = blood drool.

Trent Reznor did not only create the terrific soundtrack for The Social Network with Atticus Ross but pointed me also on the adorable electronic music of Sonoio.

Belgian maturity

Belgian heroes of international quality Gabriel Rios and An Pierlé (& White Velvet) really surprised with their mature, well balanced and rich albums The Dangerous Return and Hinterland, full of rich compositions.

Terwijl Bart Peeters mij terug voor zich won met de prachtige wereldmix op De Ideale Man, na zijn (te) donkere vorige album.

En de Fixkes zijn niet enkel een superaanwinst voor de Nederlandstalige rock, maar na het zalige Kvraagetaan, het geniale duet met Axelle Red Over ‘t Water en de gierende interpretatie van Kodazuur hebben ze op het nieuwe album Superheld met Rock-n-Roll weer een prachtige vorm van melancholie gelanceerd.

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2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how my Ullizee blog did in 2010. They provided me with a high level summary of my overall blog health (Thanks, guys!), starting with the Blog-Health-o-Meter™ that reads that my blog is on fire!

Crunchy numbers

Featured imageAbout 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. My blog was viewed about 27.000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 3 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 86 new posts, growing the total archive to 252 posts. There were 154 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 44mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of 2010 was December 20th with 175 views. The most popular post that day was The iron triangle of valuation. I still love that particular note because it expands one of my favourite topics, i.e. Agile and Scrum, to a higher level, the enterprise level of Agile HR.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, mypip.nl, twitter.com, en.wordpress.com, and linkedin.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for extreme programming, coldplay (viva la vida, viva la vida or death and all his friends), editors (an end has a start), and joy division.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010:

1

The iron triangle of valuation December 2010

2


eXtreme Programming Revisited (part I) November 2009

3


The Dark Knight returns (in Lego) August 2008

4


Joy Division (Closer… to finality?) September 2009

5

Een schitterend gebrek aan realiteit January 2009
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