Insights

  • A lesson from Richard Wagner and a carpet

    This is a story about a carpet I bought and how it led me, by pure chance, to a beautiful insight from one of Richard Wagner’s operas which gave me a paradigm shift in terms of my approach to work and life. But first, the story about the carpet: Recently, we were in Oman over […]

    Continue reading …

  • A Lesson from a Clown

    Probably the most personal thing I’m writing here. Probably one of the toughest lessons. One day a clown taught me an important life lesson. I had just started university and, at that time, I was insecure and prone to be embarrassed by just about anything. Somehow, I figured that to help me with self-confidence, I […]

    Continue reading …

  • Tools and Etiquette for our (Online!) Big Room Planning Event

    Last week, 120 of us met up online to scope out the work and the objectives for the next three months. In scaled agile (SAFe) this is called Programme Increment Planning (or PI Planning). We didn’t do it ‘by the book’ but we took parts of the concept and adapted it to our needs and […]

    Continue reading …

  • Apollo 13 and the importance of ‘Lift Offs’

    Recently I was watching the film Apollo 13 which tells the story about a shuttle’s re-entry into Earth. It’s a dreadful film but it’s compulsive watching since it combines a lot of people’s natural phobias such as claustrophobia, fear of flying, fear of darkness, and one of my own, Tom Hankophobia. Apollo 13 is also […]

    Continue reading …

  • Playing, Creating & Reconnecting with Lego and Carl Jung

    The last thing I – or anyone – wanted to do after a three-day planning session was a team building activity. An Escape Room? Working together to solve problems so that we can escape from an asphyxiating room – hang on, that’s what we’ve just been doing for three days! Anyway, we came up with […]

    Continue reading …