CORE Journal: Iterations, Doing It Again & Again
Life is a continuity always and always. There is no final destination it is going towards. Just the pilgrimage, just the journey in itself is life... — Osho
If you are a manager, entrepreneur or your average highly motivated individual you are likely rolling your eyes. You will also be shocked that if you read Jeff Sutherland’s book Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time there are many concept you could consider “Zen” or “Mindfulness.”
In my weekly Sunday Gathering on FB Live and my new YouTube Channel this week I covered the topic of “Iterations.” In this Medium post I am going to share a little bit about why, the topline lessons and the results.
First, I want to start by sharing that I am a serial experimentalist. As an example let me share some simple and recent experiments. 1. Can you create a personal development system for someone using CORE and Design thinking? Answer is yes. 2. Will wearing yoga pants every day increase your frequency of practice? The answer is no. You still have to commit and do it. A new experiment I am conducting is; Can I write 3 Medium posts a week? Well we are in that one right now. I will let you know — or you will see if it works out over the next few weeks.
Second, I want to share the motivation for the topic. Returning from Burning Man — as expected I’ve been tired, processing lots of things (Situations, events and all the emotions) and struggling. One of the things I was struggling was the “OMG, do I have to do this AGAIN!” feeling that comes from entering the “Default world” again. “Getting back on the horse” as the saying goes. What emotions came up? Annoyance, resentment of the people in my life that I “Hold Space” for. The link has the definition in case you are wondering what that means. My “fist in the sky” cry was “Who holds space for me!!” You get the picture. So I combined the issue at hand with my experience with Agile.
The practice I choose to focus on is the Agile Retrospective. The practice of stopping to check in and look back. At what is working, what can be improved and what actions you are going to take on next. If you haven’t noticed already over the last few years I have been working to interweave my own personal journey of discovery with my work. If you have, good job. Extra points.
Iterations
If you watch my 10 minute video on “Iterations” you can see the process in action. But for those of you who don’t want to watch let me break it down here on Medium for you.
Here are the 3 steps that I did.
- Set The Container
- Understand
- Decide & Close
Whether you are reading this for your own personal practice, for your team or company. It works the same.
Set the Container
This is a fancy term for setting the agenda. But because it’s in the context of an inclusive style of managing things I don’t use that word. This is simple. What is your intention? What is the collective goal?
In this video my personal intention was the share with you how I do a personal retrospective. The collective goal was to go through the process of doing it.
Understand
Understanding by definition is to grasp what is going on. In the context of getting ready for another iteration the first step is to know what is working. So that is the first question I answered. In 4 bullet points. What is working for me? The second question is what can be improved? What are the things that . I would like to put in place or do better in the next iteration.
Here are the results of this one:
What is working:
1. Rest. Lord of the Rings marathon and pizza. 2. Being present. Just being chill to what is happening. Breathing. 3. Integration of all the experiences I’ve had recently. This means really feeling the emotional dimension of the events. 4. CORE Co-Creators Circle. This is the weekly call I do with the members of the CORE Circle. My “Mastermind Group.”
What can be improved:
1. Simple tools. The daily worksheet I use. Redesigning it. 2. Key people in my network. Reaching out to them. 3. Vision. Setting my vision for this next iteration. 4. Practice. These are the collective activities that I do for keeping things moving. Including exercise, meditation and journaling. These things allow me to anchor from the mind into presence. I want to give you more context for this as we continue this conversation. But for now, know that I am “experimenting” with how to build these iterations in a different way than before. Always. Always improving.
Decide & Close
In this step I used the improvements as actions. 1. Redesign the daily tool 2. Set my vision 3. Share to my network.
A clear mandate for the next few days. Doing the exercise gives me a roadmap. And trust me, when you are “your own boss” and you have to drive your own work, a frequent roadmap helps a ton.
The close part is to complete the session. A common exercise that I use is have every person share one word on how they feel after the exercise. “Calm, understood, ready, excited” are common words. My word this week was “Again.” And I say that in humor.
Finally simply saying thank you to everyone and signing off. This closes the circuit and gives people clarity as to what is next. And god knows that clarity is one of the things that people just need. Or more importantly want.
So for me the topic was born of resentment. How often do we get resentful of our clients, our partner/spouses, or friends and family. It’s easy just to act out to those people. Be passive aggressive, or straight up aggressive. Stop communicating? How many designers have stopped communicating with you? Or the other way around? But the most common way is blaming, yourself, others, god, the universe, the government, boss, etc. The cry of “WHYYYYYY???” is often heard.
But once I did the retrospective it anchored it away from the “Why me?” into the reality of what is. Some things are working, some things need to improve. Let’s move forward. Cuz like Osho said, “Life is just a bunch of iterations of every moment and the actions you take in it.” Ok. That’s me paraphrasing Osho. But you get the point. You wanna become a better Designer? A better entrepreneur? A better person? And I am speaking here to myself, stop blaming and wallowing in “woe is me!” and drop in to what is. Do a mini retrospective on your day. One your week. your month.
Finally I promised to challenge Keone Chong a fellow CORE master and friend to write on his Medium. So here is the challenge or experiment: Can we do a call and response to each other’s Medium posts that form some sort of narrative that can provide value to you. The wonderful reader. So click on his name and tweet him that “you will read his response to my challenge.”
So what is next?
Well, I have to do the new daily sheet tonight. And go workout. You will know on Wed when I aim to post the new One Sheet. Stay tuned. Oh and like this post. A lot. Really. I need all the external validation I can get. ; )
While you are at it go to the YouTube channel and subscribe. That’s how that thing works. The more people that subscribe it’s supposed to be good. But what do I know? I am just a serial experimenter.
About Jose Caballer
Jose is a former graphic designer who started teaching online (because Tim Ferris told him in a book.) and started a YouTube channel which is now educating The Futur generations. He then left that and went to Burning Man one too many times. Ended up in NYC training tech nerds at ConsenSys and now he is struggling to figure out how to do his next iteration. In the meantime he is eating his own dog food (tech insiders reference) and hiding in Venice as a neo-hippie wannabe wizard struggling to walk the line between the ethereal and material realms. How is that for a bio? To quote his ex-wife; “Porque tan complicado…porque?”
