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Stealing Fire From The Gods

Abner — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:05:19 +0000

After reading books like: “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink and “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds; I realized how useful are stories for professionals and also for presenters. That’s why, I’ve been using Storytelling techniques over the last years in my work presentations, my conferences for user groups and even when I’m teaching something.

So, how did I start? Well, my first step was buying some books. I may have to admit that I followed blindly Daniel Pink’s recommendations buying: “Stealing Fire From Gods” by James Bonnet. It is a great book with a great title that capture your attention, isn’t it?

The target public are writers and filmmakers, so all the examples are about popular movies. That’s really great! Because you may have already seen those movies or even better, you can buy them and also have a good time watching them. You won’t see the movies in the same way after reading this book.

In summary, I learned a lot about stories, for example: why stories are so important, how stories are structured and how to create stories. All of them are important topics that every storyteller should know.

My favorite chapters are:

“Chapter 3: The New Story Model”, the storywheel is an awesome way to analyze stories!
“Chapter 4: The Art of Storymaking”; a very useful set of techniques and tips for creating stories.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in stories!

“So give the world something it desperately needs. Give it great stories” – James Bonnet

[Haz click aquí para leer la versión en español]

Project Managers and Their Knowledge About Software Development

Abner — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 04:14:35 +0000

This is a good topic to talk about when you have a lot of time with friends or acquaintances; and some after work drinks close to you!!!

Based on my experience working with project managers and also being a project manager, I’ve found very important that PMs understand and accept: the inner complexity and the inevitability of change in software development projects. Sounds easy, isn’t it? Sadly, there are PMs that don’t understand and accept those concepts, even if they have some background or career in software development.

So, projects managers should have a strong knowledge about software development or not? In my opinion, it doesn’t matter whether they have it or not because PMs should care first of people in their teams, keep them motivated and help them adapting constantly the next steps according to changes. You don’t need to know every detail about software development to do that!

It’s pretty obvious that communication and also other aspects in projects can be simplified if PMs know about software development but if they don’t, it can be solve easy because PMs can request advise from experts like software architects, experienced programmers, etc.

Even if PMs have a strong knowledge in software development, they should always request advise when they have to estimate, take decisions or just don’t understand something.

In conclusion, I think that being a project manager implies more than technical knowledge, it’s about people and how to get the best of them. If they know about software development would be great but if that is not the case, they can always ask experts for help.

[Haz click aquí para leer la versión en español]

Organization climate

Abner — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:10:08 +0000

Yesterday, I had to respond an organization climate survey, this is the second time I’ve done it in my actual work. As usual, I took a while to think about what is more important and value to me because it’s really easy to remember what you don’t like but sometimes you’re not aware of good things that you really enjoy.

Writing down all you have in mind is pretty useful technique in this case, especially early in the morning and after work. So I came up with this small set of things that I really value:

Challenge: The routine can kill your creativity so it’s important to have new challenges generated by your role in the organization or simply by your ideas!
Recognition: Following a very motivating video posted by Daniel Pink (my post here), if you do something creative and you’re reprimanded, live that place! Recognition is important because it can motivate you to do more things.
Autonomy: Having an idea is not enough, you must try it, see what happens and learn from it. If you don’t have autonomy to do that, you won’t be able to learn!

Money is also an important factor but not the only one, the big picture is necessary and you should consider everything!