Lessons

[Joseph Granville]

Hello Jerry,
I am writing to say hello and hoping that you and Dani and your puppies are all well.
Thank you for providing the forum for such an impact full learning experience.
I truly benefited from being immersed in PSL with a group of folks whose technological backgrounds and project management environments are mostly unfamiliar to me.
I was delighted to recognize how applicable the lessons from PSL are to all of us, no matter our backgrounds or work environments.
If I may indulge in sharing with you what I have taken away from PSL to this point:

Slow down. A slower paced investment of focus at the beginning of a project pays dividends later on in the project. If I were president and going to Muletown to find my company's fortune, I would first begin by taking a vacation in Muletown. One of my favorite things about visiting a new city is discovering the character and characters of the place. How do you even know if you want to do business in a place until you uncover the opportunities.

Coalescence only comes from an environment of trust, where each member is heard and each member has ownership.

And, "It's only pizza"
My mother in law Milli is a generous, thoughtful and sometimes controlling woman who I genuinely love. She organizes family trips to wonderful destinations in celebration of milestone family events.
While on one such trip to Denmark,( in celebration of my wife's, grandmother's 90th birthday) my brother in law (Bob) and I offered to go get pizza from a local pizzeria as a simple solution to the problem of dinner for 11 people.
My lovely mother in law became visibly agitated at the idea. She began with stating that the local pizzeria would not sell pizza to Bob and me. Then suggested that "they might not be open" on a Friday evening at 7PM.
Finally she agreed to the idea but only if she could go with us. On the way she felt it was some how necessary to clear the plan with the concierge of the hotel we were staying at.
As she frantically left the car to enter the hotel lobby, Bob turned to me and said "It's only pizza Milli, it's only pizza".
It is easy to recognize the controlling behavior of a well intentioned micro managing boss.
But there is another lesson here:
During our Red team's final group meeting before being presented with the Black team's challenge; one of our team members expressed anxiety at the idea that we might fail. Somehow the groups failure would be a direct reflection of his competency. I asked, "if instead of measuring how successful we are by how well we complete their task, maybe we should measure our success by how much fun we have trying to do the task".
How much in life is only pizza? How much of our own anxiety is only pizza?

Joe

[Lisa Crispin]

Hi Joe,

I was just wondering last night (as I lay awake for two hours, as I often do, worrying about things), what did I learn from PSL that I could apply in the tutorials and presentations I'm doing at two conferences in November? And I couldn't really think of anything concrete. So far, the only thing that sticks in my head is that it's good to step back and do less, which does help me in my everyday job.

So it is great to read your story about Milli, with whom I have much in common. And I appreciate your reminder of our last exercise, when we realized (following the example of the Black Team) that the best goal was to have fun. Tonight when I wake up fretting uselessly about things, I'll tell myself, "It's only pizza!" 

Thank you!
-- Lisa

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Lisa Crispin
Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
Contributor to _Beautiful Testing_ (O'Reilly 2009)
http://lisacrispin.com
@lisacrispin on Twitter
http://entaggle.com/lisacrispin