My Personal website - Project MB

Books I Read in 2025

2026-01-06T00:00:00Z

This year I am not using only Goodreads for yearly books review, I am using also the Bookshelf plugin in Obsidian. I still use Goodreads for checking the books reviews and add the books that I want to read. The main difference of the stats is that in Obsidian I track all readings, including pages of books I abandoned and the ones that are not finished during the year. So the stats are more accurately.

In 2025 I didn’t manage to reach my 22 books, I read only 18.
I read two fewer books than in 2024 and four more compared to 2023. 2025 was a rather regular year for reading.
I managed to read 5630 pages compared to 6213 pages in 2024 and 3762 in 2023, the shortest book being “The Red Notebook” by Paul Auster of 104 pages and the longest “Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes” of 435 pages. The average books length in 2025 is 264 pages.

From 18 books, 6 books arewere non-fiction, 6 biographies, and 6 fiction. Interesting this year I read the same number of books for each category. I believe because was reading less fiction this year, I was slowing reading.

My books ranking :

When Nietzsche Wept by Yalom, Irvin D.
When Breath Becomes Air by Kalanithi, Paul
Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by Parrish, Shane
Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior…and Feel Great Again by Jeffrey E. Young, Janet S. Klosko, Aaron T. Beck (Foreword)
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography by Rob Wilkins
The Echo Wife by Sarah Gaeyil
The Red Notebook: True Stories by Paul Auster
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul
Sempre Susan by Sigrid Nunez
A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer by Bob Doto
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward by Melinda French Gates
Strategii si unelte pentru a gestiona stresul si anxietatea by Andrei Roșca
Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver (Middle Falls Time Travel, #1) by Shawn Inmon
An Education by Lynn Barber
Adultery by Paulo Coelho

I didn’t reach the number of books I had planned, but I stayed close to reading as a daily habit. I noticed that when fiction was missing, reading became slower and more effortful, while stories helped me stay connected. This year reminded me that reading is something to live with, allowing it to adapt to who I am at different moments.

Books I Read in 2024

2025-01-18T00:00:00Z

Yee, I managed to reach my goal this year!
I read six more books than in 2023 and one less compared to 2022. Was a pretty good year for reading.
I managed to read 6213 pages compared to 3762 in 2023 and 6115 pages in 2022, the shortest book being “How to Live” by Derek Sivers of 115 pages and the longest “One Day” of 442 pages. The average length in 2024 is 310 pages.
From 20 books, 4 books are non-fiction 4 biographies and 12 fiction. Biographies are back this year.

My books ranking :

The Art of Explanation by Ros Atkins
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age by Gladys McGarey
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam M. Grant
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman
Exploratory Writing: Everyday magic for life and work by Alison Jones
One Day by David Nicholls
Future Proof by David Atkinson
Educated by Tara Westover
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
Us by David Nicholls
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Talking at Night by Claire Daverley
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
How Confidence Works: The new science of self-belief by Ian Robertson
Two Steps Onward by Graeme Simsion
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Abroad in Japan: Ten Years In The Land Of The Rising Sun by Chris Broad
How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion by Derek Sivers

Finish-a-non-belletristic-book

2024-03-02T02:54:41Z

Question: Why it’s so hard to finish a non-belletristic book after I get to 60%, is it only me?

I like reading lots of non-fiction books. I like those so much that I need to limit the number of books I read this year. My reading goal for this year is:

Read 20 books of which 60% fiction.

I mix up the books I read, alternating between different types of books. I usually read two, or three books at the same time. I rarely read non-fiction books during bedtime, as my focus is not the best at the end of the day.

So, if I like so much to read non-fiction books, why is so hard to finish them?

So, after a while, I start questioning myself why I want to limit the number of non-technical books. And writing this question down, I start thinking why. And I realised that last year I read fewer books because I wasn’t able to finish the non-fiction books on time. Another reason was that I experimented with not starting a fiction book if I had not finished the non-fiction book I currently read. Was a big mistake, and I don’t know why I didn’t cut it earlier. What happened is that I read fewer books.

And I dig deeper and think about the current non-fiction book I am currently reading. I realize that after I reach around 60% per cent the pace is slowing down a lot! And don’t get me wrong, the book I am reading now is very interesting and is not at all repetitive. And despite that, is still hard to get it finished.

I don’t really have an answer because is happening. It could be the case that in my subconscious I fell into the comparison trap and compared the endings of a fiction book. Or is the instant gratification monster which switches me to the other books I am reading? Or is it just my attention overloaded with all the information and I need a break?

Books I Read in 2023

2024-01-29T10:27:55Z

This review come a bit late, it’s becoming a habit 😃. In 2023, I read way less that I planed. I managed to read only 14 books, one more by the 6 less than the target in 2023.

This year, I read seven book less than 2022 and six less compared to 2021. Not the ideal year for reading.
I managed to read 3762 pages compared to 6115 pages in 2022, the shortest book being “And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer” of 67 pages and the longest “One Good Thing” of 464 pages. The average length in 2023 is 268 pages.
From 14 books, 6 books are non-fiction and 8 fiction. Interesting, I haven’t read any biographies this year, despite that I am a big fan.

My books ranking :

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.
Make Time: How to focus on what matters every day by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky.
Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters by David Kadavy.
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez.
The 4 Pillar Plan: How to Relax, Eat, Move, Sleep Your Way to a Longer, Healthier Life by Rangan Chatterjee.
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman.
One Good Thing by Alexandra Potter.
Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More by DChris Bailey.
Together, Again by Milly Johnson12.
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene and Gloria Emerson
The Spanish Promise: Escape to Sun-soaked Spain with This Perfect Holiday Read by Karen Swan.

Default Apps 2023

2023-11-28T04:15:02Z

I have found out about it on Chris blog Default Apps 2023 – Chris Coyier
Furthermore, there is a list with people doing it at Hemispheric Views - App Defaults

📨 Mail Client: Gmail

📮 Mail Server: Google

📝 Notes: Obsidian

✅ To-Do: Obsidian

📷 Photo Shooting: Android Camera

🎨 Photo Editing: N/A

📆 Calendar: Google Calendar.

📁 Cloud File Storage: OneDrive, sometimes Google Drive

📖 RSS: Omnivore, Feedly

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Google contacts

🌐 Browser: Edge, Chrome

💬 Chat: Discord, Slack,Messages, WhatsApp

🔖 Bookmarks: Omnivore, browser build in

📑 Read It Later: Omnivore, Feedly

📜 Word Processing: Obsidian , Hemingway app, Grammarly

📈 Spreadsheets: MS Excel, Google Sheets

📊 Presentations: MS PowerPoint

🛒 Shopping Lists: Post It

🍴 Meal Planning: N/A

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: MS Excel

📰 News: My husband

🎵 Music: Spotify, YouTube

🎤 Podcasts: Spotify

🔐 Password Management: Bitwarden

🧑‍💻 Code Editor: VS Code

✈️ VPN: N/A

📚 Reading: Kindle Paperwhite

Other apps I use almost daily on Android:
- Daylio - used as a productivity app, instead of mood one
- Strong - for tracking gym exercises
- Water Reminder by VGFit
- Sofascore - for following my favourite tennis players and other sports
- AccuWeather
- AnkiDroid
- DuoLingo for learning Spanish

Book review - Mind Management, Not Time Management

2023-11-06T09:40:23Z

Top Summary
When we are dealing with creativity, time management is not helpful.
We need to find the optimal mental state for different types of work, developing routines, and understanding hidden boundaries in thinking

Managing Our Mind is More Crucial Than Managing Our Time

Yet many of us approach productivity today as if it’s the speed of production, not the quality of our thinking, that matters. The conventional approach of time management is limited in its effectiveness.
Mind management involves understanding and controlling our thoughts, emotions, and focus.
By managing our mind effectively, we can achieve higher productivity and overall well-being.

Creativity Requires the Right Mental Conditions and a Balance Between Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Like planting a seed in nutrient-rich soil, and feeding it the water and sunlight it needs in order to grow, today’s productivity is about creating the conditions within your mind to have valuable thoughts. Being productive today isn’t about time management, it’s about mind management.Event-time allows for savouring positive emotions and is beneficial for creativity.
Following the stages of control - Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, Verification - can enhance creativity.
Separate Verification from the creative process to avoid getting caught up in details.
Different types of work require different mental states, such as deep work vs shallow work.
Prioritise, explore, research, generate, polish, and administrate are essential mental states for creative work.
Taking breaks and getting enough sleep are crucial for replenishing energy.

My impression

What I like most was how the author gives an insights about his creativity system, the iteration he has done. I belive this is an inspiration for creators.

My favorite quotes:

Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them. —Constantin Brancusi

The harder you try to get more out of your time, the less time you have. Even if you did have the time, you wouldn’t have the energy.

We have the gall to refer to unused time as “free” time. Do we call our unused money “free” money? No! Ironic, in a world where “time is money.”

Give yourself adequate time and space for Preparation, and immerse yourself in the subject. You’ll be tempted to try to come up with ideas during this time. Invite the ideas that do come, but don’t burn yourself out pushing through a block. Trust that Illumination will come next time you’re in your Creative Sweet Spot.

Before I started working according to mental state, I switched mental states during my writing sessions. One moment, I tried to come up with an idea to explain something. The next moment, I tried to write some polished prose about it. The moment after that, I looked up a fact. It’s no surprise I didn’t get much writing done. Instead, I got blocked. Switching mental states made the blocks worse in two different ways.

Book review - The Courage To Be Disliked

Omnivore one of my favourite app

2023-09-06T11:57:45Z

Omnivore has improved the way I consume content, making it an indispensable tool in my daily routine. And is free, open-source, distraction-free and privacy focused as the team describe it.

So what is Omnivore? Omnivore is primarily a read-later application, but it offers so much more than that. Let’s start.

Capture content

I am thrilled to have most of my readings in the same app and not in my email app.

Add links to read it later - There is a nice integration in Android and an extension for desktop Chrome and Edge ( I haven’t checked other browsers).You can also add tags.
Omnivore allows you to subscribe to newsletters directly within the app, keeping everything organized and accessible in one place.
Feeds! This was a big surprise, I stumbled upon this feature a few days ago and completely blew me away. For me, it is currently one of the most exciting features and is the reason for the review. As a Feedly user, I often encountered difficulties when trying to highlight specific content. The mess struck when I wanted to highlight something, so I had to open the original link and save it to Omnivore. Believe me, it’s not something to long for. However, The Omnivore’s feed feature solves this problem elegantly as users can save and highlight content directly within the app itself.
PDF support
Creating articles in your library

Reading:

Such an enjoyable experience. You can choose which mode you want, light to dark using the toggle under your profile, giving a comfortable experience in any lighting condition Additionally, you can personalize the reading layout as a card view or a magazine view. You can adjust the font size, margins and line spacing. Very handy when I forget my glasses 😜. Omnivore truly understands the importance of customization!

Annotation and integration

You can highlight, add your personal notes and export them to Obsidian or Logseq. On the desktop version, you can even choose different colours for highlights. There is an Omnivore plugin for this which works like a charm and the template can be modified on your needs.

Other integrations: Logseq, Pocket, Webhooks, Readwise.

For developers or enthusiasts who want to explore further possibilities with Omnivore, an API is available for seamless integration into personal projects or other applications.

Portability

The app keeps track of your reading progress and you can start reading an article on one device and finish on a different one. It shows the percentage of readings, but from my experience, it does not get it right all the time.

Check it out

If you’re someone who values organisation and efficiency in managing digital content consumption without spending a lot, then I highly recommend giving Omnivore a try.
This app is essential for tech enthusiasts like me, because it seamlessly integrates links, manages newsletters, supports beta feeds and PDFs, and provides a personalised reading experience.

Don’t just take my word for it—explore the app’s documentation at https://docs.omnivore.app/using/install.html to learn more about it.

Happy reading!

My productivity stack in 2023

Book review - The Courage To Be Disliked

2023-08-29T12:24:43Z

Top Summary

The book promotes Adlerian psychology where the past traumas are not so important, important is what we are doing.
The separation of tasks
Overcoming the past
Freedom through social interest
The significance of life tasks
Living in the present moment

Adlerian Psychology

“Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others” The difference between ‘aetiology’ (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).
We are entirely responsible for our life and is depend of us how to interpret the past.
In Adlerian psychology all problems are interpersonal relationship problems.

Separation of Task

“Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to change one’s interpersonal relationships dramatically.”Recognise the distinction between tasks that are within one’s control and those that are not.
One should focus on their own actions and choices rather than other people.
Avoid seeking validation or approval from others.
Take responsibility for your own choices and actions.

Overcoming the Past

“The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.”Accept responsibility of your life.
Embrace a proactive mindset to create positive change.
Focus on present moment and shape the future, not live in the past.

“If one really has confidence in oneself, one doesn’t feel the need to boast.”Cultivate concern for the well-being of others and society.
Shift away from self-centered thoughts and behaviours.
Develop harmonious relationships by practicing social interest

The Significance of Life Tasks

“if you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you”Identify and pursue your unique life tasks or goals.
Find meaning and fulfilment independent of societal expectations.
Avoid comparing yourself to others and focus on your personal path.

Living in the Present Moment

“We can live only in the here and now. Our lives exist only in moments.”Embrace the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
Experience a sense of freedom and happiness by fully engaging with the present.
Practice mindfulness and awareness to enhance your present-moment experiences.

My impression

While the summary is reflecting the main ideas in the book, is not telling anything about the style and the pleasure I had during reading it. The book is very well written, as a dialog between the philosopher and a young man, in a Socrates style.

My favorite quotes:

We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.

No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.’ That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.

When one seeks recognition from others, and concerns oneself only with how one is judged by others, in the end, one is living other people’s lives.

Book Read The idiot brain

Focus on what fascinates you

2023-07-01T10:28:57Z

Focus on what fascinates you

We all needs to be reminded from time to time:

“Focus on what fascinates you, no matter how uncharacteristic. There is no purpose because there is no line connecting moments in time. There is no plot. You are not a story.”
From Derek Sivers’s newsletter https://sive.rs/pdog:

Shifting our Focus

Book review - Making Work Visible

2023-06-11T11:14:43Z

I read this book back in 2017 and the book notes surface today in my Obsidian PKM, so I decided to write a review.
What I appreciate in this book is the practical advise. Making Work Visible highlighted many of the problems teams are dealing with on a day to day work. It gives ideas for identifying and fixing problems, limiting distractions, managing workflow, and always trying to improve. The book also has tips for better communication and using Kanban.

The book covers 5 themes:

1. Spot the five thieves that steal your time
3. Expose the time thieves to make work visible and optimise workflow.
4. Metrics and feedback.
5. Practices can get you into trouble.
6. Influence leadership decisions.

My takeaway from this book:
- Small teams because they can move fast, but moving fast as an individual team, you may pay the price of not moving quick as a whole organization.
- Unplanned work not only causes its own problems but brings with it all the problems of too much work in progress: context switching, interruptions, delayed work, and increased cost.
- Conflicting priorities that compete for the same people and resources block flow and increase partially completed work.
- This is so true especially when the product owner plans into a sprint just bits from different features hoping that will deliver faster multiple features at once, which most of the time is just causing delays.

Shifting our Focus

2023-05-08T01:54:32Z

From Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker

When you choose your pond wisely, you can best leverage your type, your signature strengths, and your context to create tremendous value. This is what makes for a great career, but such self-knowledge can create value wherever you choose to apply it

One needs to stop focusing on our weaknesses. This will make our internal monologue to emerge only negative thoughts and it’s easy to lose motivation and is not a surprise when we become burn-out without being very productive. Is not that we need only positive thoughts, is mainly that we need a balance between positive and negative.

But how do we find our strengths? It starts with shifting our focus away from our weaknesses and towards what we excel at. So take some time today to reflect on your strengths. What makes you stand out? What do others come to you for help with? By focusing on what we’re good at, we can swim in the right pond and make ourselves more happy and content.

Discipline - is this all we need

Discipline - is this all we need

2023-04-08T00:00:00Z

Discipline - is this all we need?

While I was browsing on the internet, I found this phrase:

“Like anything in life, discipline allows you to fulfill your goals and get things done. Discipline of mind and body. Discipline in work and family. Discipline in faith and wellness. Distractions and competing priorities that don’t align with your life’s vision and values must go”.

Quote from Brent Gleeson

Is discipline all we need? In my case, being all the time disciplined lead me to burnout, stress, or a lack of creativity. Sometimes we need distractions, I know everybody blames distractions 😜
Sometimes, distractions provide some well-deserved breaks which are good for our brains.
Sometimes unexpected breaks can lead us to new perspectives which enrich us.

So, yea, I agree we need discipline and routine, but equally, we need breaks and distractions.

My productivity stack in 2023

2023-03-17T00:00:00Z

I managed to reduce the number of apps I used. In the last two years, I have moved the tasks from Quire and the goals, the weekly reviews from OneNote to Obsidian.

I believe there are many benefits of having the projects, the tasks and the notes in one app. It helps me focus as I don’t have to switch between apps and be distracted in the meantime. Is easier now to find something and link ideas and so on.
What also brings me, and I believe is the most important, I have now a habit of writing daily notes. On some days I add more details, on some days very few details. Also, I am still mostly a consumer of the content and less of a creator, but I am confident I will get to an equilibrium one day.

My main app for all of this is Obsidian. I have templates for Daily Notes, weekly notes, the notes I capture and the notes I am writing.
I am using a folder system with one folder for each area I am interested in. Moreover, I have one folder for my projects with subfolders.

Obsidian plugins I used (apart from the core ones) in alphabetical order:

Calendar
Dataview
Emoji Toolbar
Excalidraw
Kindle Highlights
Linter
Reading time
Tasks
Tracker
Tressel Sync for Obsidian
Various Complements

Apart from the above ones, I have ExcaliBrain, Kanban and Language Tool integration installed but not used yet. I am also using MarkDownload Chrome and Edge extensions to add articles in Obsidian. I like I can configure my yaml template there.

Email - Gmail
Code Editor - VS Code
Feedly - for reading blogs, websites
Snip and Sketch - for print-screens
Omnivore - a new addition this year for read-later and highlights. I mainly added it to avoid tons of tabs with articles on different computers. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot of tabs on different devices, is a work in progress.
Goodreads - for book-lists
OneDrive - to keep the Obsidian Notes. I chose it to access Obsidian on my mobile and my work computer.
OneSync - to sync the OneDrive on mobile
Reading - Kindle
Meditation - Headspace
Water tracking - Water reminder by vgfit
Gym - Strong
Sports results - SofaScore
Language Learning - DuoLingo and Memrise
Dailio - this was from some years, my productivity app and I still keep it as I love it. And yeah, I know it is an app to track moods, but I set it up as a productivity app.

Books I Read in 2022

2023-02-15T10:27:55Z

This review come a bit late, but better late than never. In 2022 I managed to read 21 books, one more by the 20 target in 2022.

This year, I read one book more than 2021 and four more compared to 2020.
I managed to read 6101 pages compared to 5625 pages in 2021, the shortest book being “Mortality” of 129 pages and the longest “Confessions of a Forty-Something F k Up” of 513 pages. The average length in 2021 is 290 pages.
From 21 books, 8 books are non-fiction and 13 fiction. Interesting, I have read three biographies this year, actually one was listening in Spanish.

My books ranking :

Developing Coaching Skills: A Concise Introduction by Dietmar Sternad
How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers by Sönke Ahrens
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
Greenlights: Raucous stories and outlaw wisdom from the Academy Award-winning actor by Matthew McConaughey
Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success by Matthew Syed
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight by Satchin Panda
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink
Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Sanjay Gupta
Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
El humor de mi vida by Paz Padilla
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal
The Sins of the Father by Jeffrey Archer
A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Fat, Forty, and Fired: One man’s frank, funny, and inspiring account of losing his job and finding his life by Nigel Marsh
In Search of Silence by Poorna Bell
More Time to Think: The power of independent thinking by Nancy Kline

How to use Sprints in daily life

2022-07-14T14:00:03Z

Sprint is a technique used to improve productivity and efficiency, mostly used in software development. It’s a time-boxed effort that focuses on completing one feature or story before moving on to the next.

Advantages of sprints in day-to-day life:

Planning: In this type of sprint planning, we can plan our daily activities in advance and can decide how much time each activity will take us. This also avoids unnecessary confusion regarding which task should be started first.

Focus: Sprints can help us focus on our work for a certain period of time without being distracted by other tasks or events. This also lets us concentrate more on what we are doing rather than looking at our mobile phones every now and then.

Prioritization: With sprints, we can prioritize our tasks based on importance and urgency so that we can have an idea about what needs to be done first and what is not urgent at all but still needs to be done eventually if it’s not urgent then when is it going to get done?

Achieve more with less effort: When you work on something for two weeks continuously, you will find that it becomes easier as compared to working on it for months or years together. This is because in sprints you focus more on one thing at a time which makes it easier to achieve more with less effort as compared to working on multiple things simultaneously which just tends to increase complexity instead of making things simpler and better.

Less stress: Working continuously for long periods of time can get stressful.

Start from scratch

2022-06-13T00:00:00Z

From Jurgen Appelo newsletter: Start Over, Start Better sent on 8 Jun 2022, 12:03:

“Starting from scratch is exciting. There’s nothing more delightful than greenfield development, a freshly made bed, a new job without screwups, or an empty notebook with crispy white pages. Blank slates are beautiful. They are like getting a free get-out-of-jail card with all your sins forgiven. Who does not feel motivated driving in a well-cleaned car or sitting in a redecorated living room?
Hey, it’s still spring. The best time of the year to pick something you’re not happy with. And start over. Start better.”

It’s true the starting over is still exciting, but if we don’t change anything, the results will be the same as usual. You don’t necessarily need a new start, but you just need to change something to have different results.

Can Innovation Be Learn

2022-05-29T01:31:54Z

I have read in last period that innovation is a skill that anybody can learn. Is this really the case? In theory, this might be true, but in practice is not always the case.

Let’s examine the five core values of innovation:

Curiosity and a natural ability to question the status pro
Risk-taking and a willingness to learn from failure
Openness
Patience, tenacity and the sense of giving the idea a chance to grow
Trust

Now can curiosity be taught? Not really, curiosity can be cultivated and nurtured in an organization, but you’ll need curious people with an open mind.
And yes, risk-taking. Are people ready to accept risks? How about companies, how much risk is healthy and how much can disrupt them? Yes, I know, is an entire chapter.
I agree with the affirmation:

“Innovation is a discipline or competency which must be developed”.

I would add that business leader have to learn to use innovation and to imagine a different future. As an example, probably a classic example, the IBM team invented the mouse, but IBM leaders didn’t imagine the future of it.

Download Kindle highlights

2022-04-17T00:00:00Z

While I love my Kindle, it is painful to have the notes and highlights exports downloaded from it.

The way I exported the highlights in the past was:

Going to https://read.amazon.com/notebook
Select the book
Downloaded the highlights using MarkDownload Chrome extension

That was going smoothly, but the issue was with the books not bought from Amazon, as those don’t appear on the read.amazon.
Those notes and highlights are recorded in My Clipping.txt file, but are hard to export as they are saved chronologically and not by the book.

Luckily I found out about Fyodor script on https://github.com/rc2dev/fyodor.
As is explained on the Readme file "This application parses My Clippings.txt from your Kindle and generates a markdown file for each book/document, in the format #{Author} - #{Title}.md. This way, your annotations are conveniently stored and easily managed. "
The script is working like a charm using the steps described on Readme.
And now I can have all my notes and highlights on my own computer and not only on Amazon.

Books I Read in 2021

2022-01-03T10:27:55Z

This year I managed to read 20 books, two more by the 18 targets in 2021.

This is four books more than I read in 2020 and 6 more compared with 2019.
I managed to read 5968 pages compared to 4852 pages in 2020, the shortest book being “The Inner Game of Tennis” of 134 pages and the longest “How to Bake a Perfect Life” of 416 pages. The average length in 2021 is 298 pages.
From 20 books, 9 non-fiction and 11 fiction. Interesting, I haven’t read any biographies this year.

My book ranking this year:

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance by W. Timothy Gallwey
The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo
An Absent Mind by Eric Rill
Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life by Ozan Varol
Zen: The Art of Simple Living by Shunmyō Masuno
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho
How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O’Neal
Nigel: My Family and Other Dogs by Monty Don
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
My Husband’s Daughter by Emma Robinson
This Is Happiness by Niall Williams
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

GitHub how to use personal access Token

2021-11-19T12:31:26Z

Starting form 13 August 2021, GitHub no longer support account passwords when authenticating Git operations, like:

git push origin branch_name
git pull origin branch_name

As a developer, to authenticate you need too use a personal acces token.
To generate one, go in Settings:
at the top right corner, on the left side of your Setting Profile
click on Developer settings
and on the next page click Personal access tokens,
than click “Generate new token” like is explain in GitHub docs
In the same document is saying to use your token as the password, which is very inconvenient.

A better approach is to use:

git remote remove origin
git remote add origin https://[TOKEN]@github.com/[USER]/[REPO].git
git push

In this way, you don’t have to enter every time your personal token.

Agile metrics - great video!

2021-09-05T00:00:00Z

Agile metrics - great resource

This video is a great overview of metrics!

I believe is one the best compilation of metrics with the definition. Had listed not only the productivity and output metrics but also the outcome metrics and most important, from my point of view, the impact metrics. And myself, I considered as a bonus, is the last slide with the 12 rules of measurement.
Four Categories of Metrics was reviewed as part of my ShiftUp qulification program: Qualified Agility & Innovation Advancer.

Setup a local project from a fork repository

2021-02-14T11:33:21Z

How to setup a local project from a fork repository on Windows 10 using WSL2.

Fork the repository.
Switch to local development folder:

   cd D:/localdevelopment/

Clone your forked repository on the local development enviroment.
Add a new upstream repository:
git remote add upstream https://github.com/ORIGINAL_OWNER/ORIGINAL_REPOSITORY.git
Verify both repositories are correct setup:
git remote -v
To sync with the original repository, assure first you are in master branch, after:
git fetch upstream
Merge the changes in your master branch:
git merge upstream/master

Mounting the new folder on debian app:

sudo ln -s /mnt/d/localdevelopment/new-folder /var/www/new-folder

Seting up virtual host in Apache2.The conficuration file is available in /etc/apache2/sites-available.

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite.conf

edit mysite.conf with the correct document root and directory.Save the file. Now we need to enable the website

sudo a2ensite mysite.conf

Restrat apache2:

sudo service apache2 restart

In case you want to contribute to the original repository the steps are:

Create a new branch for your changes.
Make yor changes, and commit with a clear message.
Push the changes to your repository.
Create a pull request from your repository back to the original one.

Warning_chmod_Operation_not_permitted

2021-01-11T13:10:38Z

Notes for myself.
On the local enviroment, I had issues when using thirtybees project with smarty and get all the time the warning: Warning on line 84 in file /vendor/smarty/smarty/libs/sysplugins/smarty_internal_runtime_writefile.php [2] chmod(): Operation not permitted

The issue was that my user didn’t had permission to run chmod(). The solution:
Add user on the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
User [addUserHere]

After save the conf file, just reload the apache2.

Upgrade WSL1 to WSL2

2021-01-06T15:54:58Z

I have upgrade WSL 1 to WSL 2.

To install WSL 2 I use: How to Enable WSL 2 on Windows 10

To get the list of the disto:

$ wsl --list -v
NAME STATE VERSION
* Debian Stopped 1

Conver existing distro to use WSL 2

wsl --set-version Debian 2

To make all the future distro to use WSL 2:

wsl --set-default-version 2

After i have all set, trying to access the local websites, get err connection, not good at all.
So I have found myself spending more than one to found the solution.

In Windows 10 host file is not enough to have added 127.0.0.1 test.local, have to add also ::1 test.local and luckily everything works again.

Setup PHP LAMP stack in Windows 10 With WSL

Books I Read in 2020

2021-01-02T10:27:55Z

This year I manage to read only 16 books from the 19 targeting this year.

This is 2 books more than I read in 2019, but 2 less compared with 2018. I also read 33% from This is happiness by Nial Williams, but I founded so boring even the writing style is good, that I am not sure I will put the effort to finish it.
I managed to read 5005 page, the shortest book being “Unlimited memory” of 136 pages and longest “The secret hours of 608 pages”. Average length in 2020 is 312 pages.
From 16 books, 7 non-fiction, 3 biographies and 6 fictions.

My books ranking this year:

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
Black Box Thinking: Why Some People Never Learn from Their Mistakes - But Some Do by Matthew Syed
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong by Eric Barker
Paradise News by David Lodge
The Reader by by Bernhard Schlink, Carol Brown Janeway (Translator)
Unlimited Memory: How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive by Kevin Horsley
Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being by Martin E.P. Seligman
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone
Think Dog: An owner’s guide to canine psychology by John Fisher
Mrs. Hemingway by Naomi Wood
The Secret Hours by Santa Montefiore
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion

Book Read The idiot brain

2020-12-08T12:55:48Z

This is a book I read back in 2018 and gave five stars in Goodreads. Highly recomended if you are interesting how the brain works, why the less knowldgeble persons win arguments and infuence people.

Kindle Highlights

long-term memories are based on new connections

between neurons, supported by synapses, formation of which can be spurred on by doing something like repeating specific things you want to remember.

So the short-term-memory approach of repeating something until it’s remembered isn’t essential for making new long-term memories, but it is often crucial for making sure that a specific arrangement of information is encoded.

our memories are regularly tweaked and modified to suit whatever the brain interprets as our needs (however wrong that may be). Surprisingly, memory is quite plastic (meaning flexible, malleable, not rigid) and can be altered, suppressed or misattributed in numerous ways. This is known as a memory bias.

Anything that might have a negative consequence, no matter how small or subjective, is logged as ‘worth worrying about’. And sometimes even that isn’t needed.

One of the ways the brain sorts out the important information from the unimportant is by recognising and focusing on patterns.

Learning a second (or third or fourth) language utilises crystallised intelligence. Crystallised intelligence is the knowledge you have accumulated, where fluid intelligence is how well you can use it or deal with unfamiliar things that need working out.

One quite telling fact is that fluid intelligence declines as we age; someone aged eighty will perform worse on a fluid intelligence test than he or she did aged thirty, or fifty.

Contrastingly, crystallised intelligence remains stable over a lifetime.

Someone who learns French at eighteen will still be able to speak it at eighty-five, unless they stopped using it and forgot it at nineteen. Crystallised intelligence is supported by long-term memories, which are distributed widely throughout the brain and tend to be resilient enough to withstand the ravages of time.

(intense neuronal activity tends to give off a lot of waste products such as free radicals, energetic particles that are harmful to cells).

The phenomenon of less-intelligent people being more confident has an actual scientific name: the Dunning–Kruger effect.

Dunning and Kruger argued that those with poor intelligence not only lack the intellectual abilities, they also lack the ability to recognise that they are bad at something. The

The efficiency of the brain’s processing and connections play a big part in an individual’s intelligence. but then there is also the fact that certain areas, such as the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus, are bigger and have more grey matter in people of greater intelligence.

Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), one of the most popular personality-measuring tools in the world, worth millions of dollars. The trouble is, it is not supported or approved by the scientific community. It looks rigorous and sounds proper (it too relies on scales of traits, extrovert–introvert being the most well-known one), but it’s based on untested decades-old assumptions put together by enthusiastic amateurs, working from a single source.8

People with a more confident, extroverted personality probably have a dominant left side, while for neurotic or introverted types it’s likely to be the right. But the right side’s influence doesn’t lead to anything being done about apparent threats, so they persist, causing anxiety and stress.

Feeling like a passive victim of events can be damaging; it can reduce the brain to a state of learned helplessness. People don’t feel they can change their situation, so lack the motivation to try.

It seems as if the second best way to motivate a person to do something is to leave it incomplete and

Groups will often adopt a more extreme conclusion than individual members would if alone.

So the more privileged and comfortable someone’s life is, the harder it is for them to appreciate the needs and issues of those worse off.

in extremely stressful experiences it backfires; the memory’s so vivid, and remains so vivid, that the individual keeps re-experiencing it, as if it were constantly reoccurring.

the constant apprehension and persistence of stressful occurrences causes crippling anxiety or panic attacks.

not everyone sees a [[nervous breakdown]] as a helpful thing; not everyone gets over it, and those who do often retain a sensitivity to stress and adversity that means they could more easily experience a nervous breakdown again.16

Our brains are always chattering away, thinking, musing, worrying and so on. This all produces (or is produced by) activity within the brain.

Visualisation

2020-06-17T13:12:19Z

Start with a question, draw the nodes, refine the nodes and do it over and over again, then the patterns emerged and get clarity and you can answer the question.

First, start with the draw. The draw helps understanding the system.
After the sketch is done, use the cards or sticky notes. These can be
moved around and now you can discover new relations.
The third part of the exercise is to draw but in a group. Now everything can be discussed, questioned and after doing many iterations we can have a deeper understanding of the problem and eventually find a solution.

There was a contradiction during the talk, on one hand he stated that the conversation are important, and on the other hand, the practice tells that if the team is doing the exercise in complete silence, the group do it better and quickly(at minute 4:26).

Source: Got a wicked problem? First, tell me how you make toast by Tom Wujec

How to set the right goals

2020-06-08T14:47:42Z

This post contain my notes from John Doerr TED-ex talk.
To set the goals right, we may first answer the question WHY. Why we want to do that? What we want to achieve? And is we answer this question we can set the objective. They may be significant, have to be inspirational. And than we can follow them year by year.

Another interesting insights - the OKR are not used for bonuses and promotions. They’re used for a higher objective to get teams commitments.
OKRs as transparent vessels that are made from the whats and hows of our ambitions.

The talk can be watch here. Highly recommended.

Manual API testing using Insomnia

2020-05-31T11:04:17Z

Install Insomnia from https://insomnia.rest/.

Open Insomnia and click on the New Request button.

Enter the request name, in my case Ipify. Ensure the request method is GET.

Enter the url - in my case https://api.ipify.org, in the URL bar.

To format the resonse, open the Query tab and enter format into the first new name field and json into the first new value field.

In Windows, when clicking Send, I get error “Error: Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with given CA certificates”. In order to work, have to disable the certificates, in settings (settings > Validate SSL Certificates).

Grit - Ted Talk

2020-05-18T17:05:19Z

Excellent talk! Three take away:

“Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
The ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort.
We need to be gritty about getting our kids grittier.

That’s a lot for a 5 and a half minute talk. Also loved her honesty!

Watch here the talk

Astro Teller - Ted Talk

2020-05-11T10:13:23Z

The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure on TedEx. Brilliant! Very powerful and vivid talk.

I have to admit that before wathcing this talk I wasn’t aware of the existance of X (company) (formerly Google X) and their interests in various technologies.

Three ideas taken with me.

Make an environment safe to fail.
Focus first on the most challenging problem to figure out if the idea is viable or not.
Sometimes shifting your perspective is more powerful tool.

The unexpected benefit of celebrating failure - Astro Teller

Or watch the talk on Ted!

The Foolishness Of Fail Fast Fail Often Notes

2020-05-05T11:21:07Z

As part of my ShiftUp Qualification Program I was reading a Forbes article The Foolishness Of Fail Fast, Fail Often:
Read here the original article

A very good article! Made me to re-read the Agile Manifesto which is always a good thing.
The most important thing personally I learnt: “Lean is a term normally associated with the removal of waste and inefficient processes to improve an outcome.” I think was the most simple and clear definition of Lean I read, and will be most useful for me.
I’ve like the author challenged the “fail fast, fail often” mantra, which obviously cannot be used in any context. Too often people take a wonderful concept, removed the context around it and use it blind everywhere.

Thirtybees PHP Depencencies

2019-12-22T18:40:08Z

Madatory PHP modules when install ecomm Thitybees open source:

PHP version 7.2.0

php.h : lang/php72
bcmath.so : math/php72-bcmath
curl.so : ftp/php72-curl
gd.so : graphics/php72-gd
imap.so : mail/php72-imap
json.so : devel/php72-json
mbstring.so : converters/php72-mbstring
opcache.so : www/php72-opcache
openssl.so : security/php72-openssl
pdo_mysql.so : databases/php72-pdo_mysql
soap.so : net/php72-soap
xml.so : textproc/php72-xml
zip.so : archivers/php72-zip

How to restart Apache2 with DirectAdmin

2019-10-09T17:11:26Z

In order to restart Apache2 using DirectAdmin

Login in DirectAdmin as admin user
Go to Service Monitor and the services available apear
Press plus sign and the options to Stop, Sart and Reload are shown.

Git add

2019-08-13T17:11:26Z

Reminder about the difference between git add . and git add -A command.

git add .

The above command will stage all new files and the changed ones apart the deleted ones.


git add -A

The above command will stage all new files and the changed one and will delete the deleted files.

On the other hand


git add -u

will track all the already tracked files and stage the changes but will not stage any new files.

How to upgrade Hugo version on Windows

2019-07-28T16:20:19Z

How to upgrade Hugo version on Windows 10

Download the new version for Windows 64 bit from https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/release/

Unzip the archize and copy the executable to /Your Hug folder/bin/

And that’s it. Simple as that!
Verify the Hugo version using:

hugo version

Setup PHP LAMP stack in Windows 10 With WSL

2019-07-07T00:00:00Z

First you will need to enable"Windows Subsystem for Linux", Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

After that restart your computer. Now that the WSL is enabled go to Microsoft store and choose whatever Linux distro you like. I had choose debian, as I used it in production as well.

Check if any updates exists
```
sudo apt-get update
```
Install updates
```
sudo apt update
```
Install apache2
```
sudo apt install apache2
```
Enable mod_rewrite
```
sudo a2enmod rewrite
```
Restart apache
```
sudo service apache2 restart
```
Install php7.2
```
sudo apt-get install php7.2
```
Actually was installed PHP 7.3 as well and setup as default version. To check PHP version:
```
php -v
```
Mounting the development folder. On WSL C driver is mounting /mnt/c/ and D driver is /mnt/d/.So in my case I have the working folder on D:LocalDevelopment, so the commands will be:
```
ln -s /mnt/d/localdevelopment /var/www/localdevelopment
```

PHP to show error messages
backup php.ini and replace it with the development version.

cd /etc/php/7.3/apache2
sudo cp php.ini php-bk-ini
sudo cp /usr/lib/php/7.3/php.ini-development  /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini

install debug extension
```
sudo apt-get install php-xdebug
```
install php-dom extension
```
sudo apt-get install php7.3-dom
```
Verify which extensions are installed:
```
php7.3 -m | head
```

Installed the extension needed:

apt install php7.3-bcmath php7.3-bz2 php7.3-curl php7.3-gd php7.3-intl php7.3-json php7.3-mbstring php7.3-readline php7.3-xml php7.3-zip php7.3-mysql

In php ini change:
max_execution_time = 240
memory_limit = 512
alow_max_filesize=128M
allow_url_include on
```
sudo nano /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini
```

Close the file and save changes.

Restart Apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

Check that phpinfo.php now shows an Xdebug section. Then edit xdebug.ini by running

 sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/mods-available/xdebug.ini

and add the following:

[XDebug]
xdebug.remote_enable = 1
xdebug.remote_autostart = 1

Restart Apache again and XDebug is ready to go.

sudo service apache2 restart

Configure VS code for xdebugg.
For me to have this work, I’ve install VS Code Insider and Remote-WSL extensions.
Open a php file, go to Debug/Open cofiguration and this will open launch.json and add
“pathMappings”:

Will need to configure VS code to use Linux. Select your default terminal by pressing F1 in VS Code and typing/selecting Terminal: Select Default Shell and choose WSL bash.

I have installed PHP Intelephense to get relevant code suggestions and PHP debug for debugging.

Restart VS Code

Setting up virtual hosts in Apache2. The conficuration file is available in /etc/apache2/sites-available. By default, there is one site available called 000-default.We can use this file as a starting point to create the configurations for sites we wanted/

   sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite.conf

Then we can edit the config site

   sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite.conf

and add

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost

ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/www/html/mysite

Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory “/usr/lib/cgi-bin”>
AllowOverride None
Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all

Is a good idea to have separate logs for each website, so simple change the Error log line in the above file with the path /var/www/html/mysite/error.log

Save the file. Now we need to enable the website:

bash sudo a2ensite mysite.conf

And again, have to restart apache to load the new configutrations.

  sudo service apache2 restart

The next step is to add the local domains in Windows host file. This is located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, edit as an administrator and add the following line:

127.0.0.1 mysite.com

Install mariadb server:

  sudo apt-get install mariadb-server

When the installation is complete, run a simple security script that comes pre-installed with MariaDB which will remove some insecure default settings and lock down access to your database system.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

This will take you through a series of prompts where you can make some changes to your MariaDB installation’s security options. The first prompt will ask you to enter the current database root password. Because you just installed MariaDB and haven’t made any configuration changes yet, this password will be blank, so just press ENTER at the prompt.
The next prompt asks you whether you’d like to set up a database root password. Type N and then press ENTER. In Debian, the root account for MariaDB is tied closely to automated system maintenance, so we should not change the configured authentication methods for that account.
From there, you can press Y and then ENTER to accept the defaults for all the subsequent questions. This will remove some anonymous users and the test database, disable remote root logins, and load these new rules so that MariaDB immediately respects the changes you have made.
To start mariadb:

sudo service mysql start

Apart from those is fixing issues if you run: mysql -uroot -p as will get:
ERROR 1698 (28000): Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’
Is recommended to not use root, instead create a new mysql user and grant all options

GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your pass' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Install nodejs:

sudo apt install nodejs

Install npm:

sudo apt install npm

Verifying npm version, I get te error

  npm --version
  not foundram Files (x86)/nodejs/npm: 3: /mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/nodejs/npm:
  : not foundram Files (x86)/nodejs/npm: 5: /mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/nodejs/npm:
  /mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/nodejs/npm: 6: /mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/nodejs/npm: Syntax error: word unexpected (expecting "in")

This version was resolved with

  export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin

After this command:

  npm --version
  5.8.0

Resources used:

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-apache-mariadb-php-lamp-stack-debian9

https://www.itwriting.com/blog/10213-setting-up-php-for-development-on-windows-services-for-linux-in-windows-10.html

https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/3882

Thirtybees always show free shipping

2019-03-11T00:00:00Z

Prestashop and Thirtybees always show free shipping

Setting up the carrier in a new website, the carrier show all teh time the text “Free shipping” and no carrier were available.

Check shipping location and ranges if they are correct setup
Check “out-of-range” behavior is set to apply the cost of the highest defined range, otherwise the carrier is disabled.
Check if the products has the advanced stock management functionality enabled. In case that is really needed
- Associate a carrier with a warehouse: Stock > Warehouse >
- associate a product with a warehouse: Catalog > Product > Warehouse

Thirtybees PHP Depencencies

Sprint Planning

2018-08-12T00:00:00Z

Sprint planning meeting, a possible agenda.

The Product Owner starts the meeting by reviewing the sprint goal. The sprint goal is one - two sentences that describe what the team plans to achieve during the sprint. The Sprint backlog is the list of user stories and tasks the team commits to delivering during the Sprint.

The Scrum Master presents the velocity calculated either based on story points, either based on the number of stories if the #No estimates is used.Confirm team capacity.

Discuss any currently known issues and concerns

The team together with Product Owner:

discuss and clarify the stories
estimates the story and splits if necessary
elaborates acceptance criteria
identify any dependency

Everyone confirm any assumptions or dependencies discovered during the planning and commits to the Sprint goal.

My favourites Agile metrics

2018-06-13T00:00:00Z

As a Scrum Master I have some favorites metrics which I usually use it.

Burndown chart - used daily as an indicator how the sprint is going.
Velocity and velocity variation - i use a three to six sprint rolling average.
Sprint goal success rates.
Time Blocked per User story.
Defects found.
Escaped defects.
verage time between releases.
Code mainttainability.
Build time.

This metrics are intented to be used by the team to help us to improve our processes and are not intended to be use for any reporting outside the team.
Some articles that I found interesting related with metrics:

Agile metrics

2018-05-17T00:00:00Z

I found today a very interesting article about agile metrics:

[Agile Metrics: the Ultimate Guide] (https://www.extremeuncertainty.com/agile-metrics-ultimate-guide/#comment-7552 “Agile Metrics: the Ultimate Guide”)

Scrum Master role

2018-05-16T00:00:00Z

Sometimes people forget how important is the role of Scrum Master.
Is not about only being a servant leader of the Development Team,is also serving the organization and the product owner. Is the link between the team and the rest of the world. Here are some points that a good Scrum Master should take care of.

Definition of done - is one of the most important definitions that should be inspected regularly. It helps to increase the transparency, it helps to improve the quality of work and it helps to keep people aligned. The definition of done should be well understood by each team member, moreover, should be also understood by the stakeholders. This will hugely help to increase the transparency.

Sprint Goal - Scrum Master should take care that after each Sprint planning an objective is set for the Sprint and every team member understand the objective. From my experience, I saw many teams who only choose user stories in a sprint, everybody take care to have the sprint capacity fulfill, but less attention is taken to have a sprint goal agreed and to have the coherence needed to work as a team and not as an individual developer.

Sprint Retrospective - is Scrum Master job to help the team to communicate during the restrospective, to be sure that every single team member give his/her feedback. Is Scrum Master job to help the team to find ways to improve the process, based on their experiences in the sprint.

Resolve conflict - ensure there is communication in the team focusing on values respect and Openess.
Knowing the team you can ensure that the team is fully functional and any potentials conflict can be resolved before is causing any disruptions.

I’ll close this short post with one of my favorite paragraph from Scrum Guide.

“The Scrum Master’s job is to work with the Scrum Team and the organization to increase the transparency of the artifacts. This work usually involves learning, convincing, and change. Transparency doesn’t occur overnight, but is a path.”

In my opinion this should be part of every Scrum Master job description.