Tag Archive

In order for us to learn something new, we need to store it in long term memory. If we’re unable to save it there, then we’ll immediately lose that learning the moment we focus our working memory on something new. Working memory is quite limited¹ so we need to save those memories quickly if we’re going to.

Inattentional blindness is when we are so focused on some things that we completely miss other things that should be completely obvious. This can be used to hilarious effect, as you’ll see below, and at the same time is something we need to take into account in business.

Cognitive load is an indication of how hard the brain works to perform specific actions. Although often used as just a conceptual model, cognitive load can be measured by watching cerebral blood flow while performing different tasks, and many formal studies of programming tasks do exactly this.

Polyvagal Theory is the work of Dr Stephen Porges and describes what we know today about how our nervous system, and entire body, responds to how safe or threatening the world feels to us. This has significant implications for the behaviours we see in ourselves and in others. It’s important to note that we react based on our perception of how safe the world is, and not how safe it actually is.

Attribute substitution is a situation where, when we are faced with a computationally difficult decision, we will often substitute a more easily calculated decision in it’s place and answer that instead, without even realizing that we did this.

In his seminal book Thinking Fast and Slow¹, Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks about two very different kinds of thinking that we do. He refers to them as System 1 (fast, but often wrong) and System 2 (slower, more accurate).

In a coaching context, asking “why” questions can be problematic. They can often give results that we did not intend and should be used carefully and sparingly.

Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels Model (also called Neurological Levels), is a framework to analyze and understand human experiences, behaviours, and change. It provides a structured way of examining different levels of human experience and helps individuals identify and work with those levels to create effective change. It’s based on earlier work from anthropologist Gregory Bateson.

We tend to over-simplify motivation into just two buckets: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT)¹, there are in fact six kinds of motivation² and it’s worth considering the full range.

When discussing psychological safety, we like to use the SAFETY¹ model from the Academy of Brain-based Leadership. Note that we’re not affiliated with this organization - we just find their model very useful when discussing the topic.

Continuous improvement is a process of constantly seeking out ways to improve and optimize performance, processes, and overall organizational success. An agile environment hinges on this notion of continuous improvement. We don’t expect to be perfect today but we do expect to be improving over time.

The words we use are far more important than most people realize. They have the ability to make deep changes in unconscious behaviour in ourselves and the people around us.

I find that many of the conversations we have about psychological safety tend to devolve into platitudes: “It’s good and we should have more of it” or “managers should create safer spaces”. This doesn’t give anyone any context into why it’s actually important or how we can go about improving it.

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

Our brains are highly advanced prediction engines¹. They are constantly trying to predict what will happen next so that we can be prepared for what’s coming. When our brain makes a successful prediction then we get rewarded with a tiny shot of dopamine that makes us feel good.

You may have already heard of Google’s Project Aristotle. Back in 2012, Google set out to identify what made their most effective teams so much better than others. They wanted to reproduce that magic that some teams had across the company and so they interviewed 180 teams and collected all kinds of data.

While code coverage can be a useful measurement for teams to improve their own results, the moment it’s tracked by people external to the team, particularly management, it becomes a perverse incentive.

Each day during standup, most teams will have every answer three questions. The questions most commonly asked are fairly poor and result in a undesirably bad meeting.

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Six Thinking Hats is a technique to improve creativity by focusing our attention on only one perspective at a time. Useful wherever we need creativity - from retrospectives to product planning to strategic visioning.

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Words direct attention. Some words will encourage superficial conversations while others will allow you to quickly get into deeper, more meaningful ones. Learn some of the language patterns used by hypnotists and other effective communicators.

In hypnosis, the “Apex Problem” refers to a situation where the client is cured so effectively that they don’t remember ever having had that problem.

As the story goes, the computer science lab at Reed College has a rule that before you can ask for help with the programming problem you’re working on, you have to first explain that problem out loud to the teddy bear in the corner.

Have you ever walked into the kitchen, only to realize that you’ve now forgotten why you walked into the kitchen?

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

When discussing psychological safety, we like to use the SAFETY¹ model from the Academy of Brain-based Leadership. Note that we’re not affiliated with this organization - we just find their model very useful when discussing the topic.

While science has identified hundreds of different neurotransmitters in our brains, there are five that are most commonly identified with behaviour. Each of these are part of our survival mechanism and will encourage or discourage specific behaviours with the goal of keeping us safe.

I find that many of the conversations we have about psychological safety tend to devolve into platitudes: “It’s good and we should have more of it” or “managers should create safer spaces”. This doesn’t give anyone any context into why it’s actually important or how we can go about improving it.

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

Our brains are highly advanced prediction engines¹. They are constantly trying to predict what will happen next so that we can be prepared for what’s coming. When our brain makes a successful prediction then we get rewarded with a tiny shot of dopamine that makes us feel good.

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

When discussing psychological safety, we like to use the SAFETY¹ model from the Academy of Brain-based Leadership. Note that we’re not affiliated with this organization - we just find their model very useful when discussing the topic.

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

I’m seeing more and more situations where someone will say “this is a safe space” in a meeting invite or at the beginning of a session. While I appreciate that the person saying the words really wants that to be true, the fact they feel the need to say it, highlights the fact that it probably isn’t. If it really were safe, we would already know that.

When discussing psychological safety, we like to use the SAFETY¹ model from the Academy of Brain-based Leadership. Note that we’re not affiliated with this organization - we just find their model very useful when discussing the topic.

I find that many of the conversations we have about psychological safety tend to devolve into platitudes: “It’s good and we should have more of it” or “managers should create safer spaces”. This doesn’t give anyone any context into why it’s actually important or how we can go about improving it.

You may have already heard of Google’s Project Aristotle. Back in 2012, Google set out to identify what made their most effective teams so much better than others. They wanted to reproduce that magic that some teams had across the company and so they interviewed 180 teams and collected all kinds of data.

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Words direct attention. Some words will encourage superficial conversations while others will allow you to quickly get into deeper, more meaningful ones. Learn some of the language patterns used by hypnotists and other effective communicators.

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

I occassionally hear from managers that their people just aren’t motivated to do anything. This is rarely the complete story as these people are clearly motivated to do many things, just perhaps not those things that the manager wants them to do.

We tend to over-simplify motivation into just two buckets: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT)¹, there are in fact six kinds of motivation² and it’s worth considering the full range.

Continuous improvement is a process of constantly seeking out ways to improve and optimize performance, processes, and overall organizational success. An agile environment hinges on this notion of continuous improvement. We don’t expect to be perfect today but we do expect to be improving over time.

Six Thinking Hats is an approach for creativity that was created by Edward DeBono. I use it as the basis for an agile retrospective, and find this approach to be particularly effective when the topic we’re discussing is expected to be controversial or heated.

Are your retros running a bit flat? Need something to spice them up and make them more effective and also more interesting for your team? Join us as we walk through a collection of techniques from psychology and applied neuroscience to give your retros that edge you need.

In order for teams to step into high performance. it’s critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn’t working. Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.

In a previous article we discussed what the logical levels are. In this article, we’re going to show how we can assist someone at each level. If you haven’t read that article first then we suggest you do that now.

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

Attribute substitution is a situation where, when we are faced with a computationally difficult decision, we will often substitute a more easily calculated decision in it’s place and answer that instead, without even realizing that we did this.

I talk a lot about neuroscience, psychology, hypnosis, body language, and other topics as they relate to Agile methods and I’m frequently asked: “What books do you recommend as an introduction?” There is no single best book to start with so I’m giving you a bunch of categories to pick from.

Today, January 4, is World Hypnosis Day. If you’re like most people, all you know about hypnosis is what you’ve seen on TV or in movies, and while entertaining, that’s mostly wrong. You may have even seen a live hypnosis show, and while there will certainly be real hypnosis being done, most of what you’re going to notice is showmanship and entertainment.

Our brains process an incredible amount of information through the use of metaphor (comparing one thing against another). When you listen carefully to the words we use, you will begin to notice how often metaphor is used in conversation.

Team working agreements (sometimes called team norms) are all about how we are going to work together as a group of people. To do this effectively, we need fairly deep and honest conversations, and yet we see many working agreement sessions stay fairly superficial. The approach in this article uses LEGO® Serious Play® for the core discussions to get those more meaningful conversations.

In order for teams to step into high performance. it’s critical that they develop the practice of having effective conversations about what is and isn’t working. Yet in practice, the retrospective meeting is often the least-valued of the agile events: team members feel that their retros are boring, repetitive, and superficial.

In a previous article we discussed what the logical levels are. In this article, we’re going to show how we can assist someone at each level. If you haven’t read that article first then we suggest you do that now.

Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels Model (also called Neurological Levels), is a framework to analyze and understand human experiences, behaviours, and change. It provides a structured way of examining different levels of human experience and helps individuals identify and work with those levels to create effective change. It’s based on earlier work from anthropologist Gregory Bateson.

I occassionally hear from managers that their people just aren’t motivated to do anything. This is rarely the complete story as these people are clearly motivated to do many things, just perhaps not those things that the manager wants them to do.

We tend to over-simplify motivation into just two buckets: intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT)¹, there are in fact six kinds of motivation² and it’s worth considering the full range.

Attribute substitution is a situation where, when we are faced with a computationally difficult decision, we will often substitute a more easily calculated decision in it’s place and answer that instead, without even realizing that we did this.

In his seminal book Thinking Fast and Slow¹, Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks about two very different kinds of thinking that we do. He refers to them as System 1 (fast, but often wrong) and System 2 (slower, more accurate).

Stress and anxiety are widespread in our industry and you may have already noticed that it’s really hard to coach someone who is highly stressed or anxious. It’s also really hard for you to personally perform at your best when you’re in that state.

Continuous improvement is a process of constantly seeking out ways to improve and optimize performance, processes, and overall organizational success. An agile environment hinges on this notion of continuous improvement. We don’t expect to be perfect today but we do expect to be improving over time.

Inattentional blindness is when we are so focused on some things that we completely miss other things that should be completely obvious. This can be used to hilarious effect, as you’ll see below, and at the same time is something we need to take into account in business.

Six Thinking Hats is a technique to improve creativity by focusing our attention on only one perspective at a time. Useful wherever we need creativity - from retrospectives to product planning to strategic visioning.

Hero culture is when we rely on individual heroics on a regular basis. Someone pulling an all-nighter to get one thing done, one time, may be ok. Relying on that on an ongoing basis is unsustainable and will destroy whatever teamwork and culture you used to have.

Each of us has an inner map of the world with rich connections between all the pieces. When we attempt to communicate with others, we’re limited by the words we use, which can’t possibly capture the richness of our internal map. As a result, we lose significant information as we try to communicate.

Our brains are highly advanced prediction engines¹. They are constantly trying to predict what will happen next so that we can be prepared for what’s coming. When our brain makes a successful prediction then we get rewarded with a tiny shot of dopamine that makes us feel good.

Each of us has an inner map of the world with rich connections between all the pieces. When we attempt to communicate with others, we’re limited by the words we use, which can’t possibly capture the richness of our internal map. As a result, we lose significant information as we try to communicate.

Polyvagal Theory is the work of Dr Stephen Porges and describes what we know today about how our nervous system, and entire body, responds to how safe or threatening the world feels to us. This has significant implications for the behaviours we see in ourselves and in others. It’s important to note that we react based on our perception of how safe the world is, and not how safe it actually is.