For sometime I’ve been publishing Agile Quick Links. Links to articles that Agile folk will be interested in. Now I’m starting NeuroAgile Quick Links, these will references to articles or summaries of papers that I think are of interest to members of the Agile community.
The Conversation is Over. Long Live the Conversation – reacting to an article about the use of twitter like tools in high school, David Rock examines the affects our interactions through facebook, twitter etc. are reducing our empathy and damaging the art of conversation. David talks about the silence in cubicle mazes as people ignore each other and fail to collaborate. Talk your teammates don’t IM or Skype them, real collaboration happens through face-to-face conversation and not over a computer
When We’re Cowed by the Crowd and The Web and the Wisdom of Crowds – we’re all familiar with the Wisdom of Crowds (James Surowiecki) and the idea how a diverse group of people can make some very accurate estimates/guess. In these articles, Jonah Lehrer describes:
The scientists then gave their subjects access to the guesses of the other members of the group. As a result, they were able to adjust their subsequent estimates based on the feedback of the crowd. The results were depressing. All of a sudden, the range of guesses dramatically narrowed; people were mindlessly imitating each other. Instead of cancelling out their errors, they ended up magnifying their biases, which is why each round led to worse guesses. Although these subjects were far more confident that they were right—it’s reassuring to know what other people think—this confidence was misplaced.
I wonder what affect this has in planning poker where we get more information than just the raw numbers, also the ideas behind the numbers.
“That’s the Way We (Used to) Do Things Around Here” (strategy+business – free reg required) a long article on understanding how change works and the brains involvement. If you’re helping to organize change (i.e. coaches) this article is well worth reading.
Happiness on the Job is tied to Autonomy (see: Happiness: The Neglected Role of Job Design). In addition the study notes:
The study also shows that performance-related pay, one widely-used management tenet of high performance work systems, makes no difference to satisfaction or stress. Performance-related pay includes bonuses given to City workers and other employees
In the same vein Its all about control – you either need power or choice (i.e. autonomy). This is a recurring theme autonomy is very important to us.
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