The Philippe Back Report

The people at http://www.ivarjacobson.com have released an ebook on what they call the Use Case 2.0 The Definitive Guide.

You can pick a copy. And also look at a presentation that may put some more context around it.

They’ll ask you to fill in all kinds of fields…

It merges:

• Use Cases
• Stories
• Kanban
• Agile
• Backlog based work organization

It is a workable system IMHO.

There is a use case tracker described in there.

Save yourself some time by taking my little Excel version.

Sample Script to do it (using the Execute undocumented op)

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option explicit
 
!INC Local Scripts.EAConstants-VBScript
!INC EAScriptLib.VBScript-Logging
 
'
' Script Name: SQL
' Author: Philippe Back
' Purpose: Demo SQL Invocation
' Date: 25/1/2011
'

Function SQLQuery(sql)
Dim sRes
LOGInfo("Query: " & sql)
sRes = Repository.SQLQuery(sql)
LOGInfo("Res: " & sRes)
End Function
 
Function SQLExec(sql)
Dim sRes
LOGInfo("Statement: " & sql)
sRes = Repository.Execute(sql)
LOGInfo("Res: " & sRes)
End Function
 
Sub Main
SQLQuery("SELECT * FROM T_OBJECT WHERE OBJECT_ID=1")
SQLExec("UPDATE T_OBJECT SET NAME='STUFF' WHERE OBJECT_ID=1")
End Sub
 
Main

Yes, how to identify them? Let’s have a shot.

5 key areas

First of all, let’s look at the five key areas of life:

• financial
• intellectual
• physical
• spiritual
• relational

Picture yourself at the center of these 5.

At this very moment in your life, are you financially happy, intellectually happy, physically happy, spiritually happy, relationally happy? Do you want more out of one area?

Pick an area of importance to you.

Write it down. Come on, do it, write it down on a scrap of paper.

A basic question

Now, ask yourself this basic question:

How would I know when I’d reach ‘it’ in that very area?

Yes, how would you know? Because without an indicator, you aren’t gonna get very real on this one.

The more precise you can get on the indicator, the better. Nobody said it couldn’t be qualitative by the way.

And an outcome doesn’t need to be Earth shattering to be a top outcome. Just that it is of enough importance for you to commit to get in motion towards it. For long enough and with enough resolve so that there is a pretty good chance you’ll make it.

So, now turn your attention to the ‘it‘ bit. Now that you have an indicator, it is much easier to define this ‘it‘ more clearly.

Now write down: 

Top outcome in ….. : ……

I’d know I’ll be there when: … is true…

Reality check

Rinse and repeat, until you have your three

Formulation done!

Apple released iBooks2 and a new textbook creation app for the Mac (You’ll need Lion for that, and even if these things are free, they’ll end up pocketing money from that new tide of upgrades – I know they will from me).

Keynote already made a huge difference to helping me communicate to an audience (people seeing the presentations tell me regularly: hey, this is definitely *not* a PowerPoint, it looks waay better, and is more effective!).

So, I was using it on my iPad to convey ideas in meetings, where it brings a sense of closeness and bonding that helps in securing business.

But with the textbooks that do come to life, we enter a new dimension. Think about all Seth Godin PDFs in the form of animated Textbooks, think about curated content with comments on a given subject put together and released to the world!

Mmh, in a sense, it is weird that this is announced aroud the time SOPA gets protested and MegaVideo got busted by the FBI. But I may digress.

Anyway, this is a super gift for all of us who have value to share. And sharing this way is really making it all exciting. That’s what Apple products have succeeded in doing: getting people involved in getting excited again. It is not happening with Linux, it is not happening with Windows. It is happening with Apple products, and a bit less with Android phones.

I’ve bet a lot of the farm on Apple. Not because I am any kind of fanboi, but because it is the logical thing to do when a cash-laden company uses it to roll out such innovative and stimulating stuff ot the world.

That’s what Apple is strong with: cash-loaded, innovative, master of their supply chain, and controlling the delivery channel. Walled garden? Sure! But generating money and recognition for the players: very very true indeed! Love, money, recognition: they made it so that you get the three assembled with Apple.

That’s what leadership is about: instilling the motivation to follow and make your best.

So, Apple may lead to people challenging jumping off buildings at Foxconn (and doing something about it, as was reported) but they also deliver us these.

I started with an Apple II eons ago, moved off when they were out of fancy, and am back to them 20+ years later. Yet another proof that you can turn things over given the right decisions. Quite different from Kodak. But quite alike to Fujitsu.

Some more info: http://mashable.com/2012/01/19/this-is-how-apple-changes-education-forever/

Even if the world seems to be crumbling down

As 2011 draws to a close, with the economy appearing to be sliding down, and Eurozone’s debt going exponentially up, I sometimes wonder if there is any rhyme or reason in all of this. Times are getting tougher, that’s a fact. Kind of stormy would be a better description.

But times are also getting new. And different. Times that do require a better innovative stance and a clear strategy to make things happen. Whoever recognizes this upfront will be better off in the times ahead of us.

That’s why you need to be an optimist.

That’s the rational choice. Being a pessimist will only let you in the dust. You can’t keep the required drive and energy if you let the pessimist side of you takes over.

I am not a natural optimist mind you. The more I look in depth, the more educated I become, the more reasons I get to be pessimistic. Call that being a realist. That’s what you also get from having been formerly trained as a civil engineer: a talent for seeing what could be wrong and how to prevent it from happening. A talent for precision and sharp understanding through cold-blooded examination. That’s what makes planes safe and bridges okay to cross. And machine guns effective.

But that’s not what gets you to your top goals. What keeps you ‘safe’ isn’t what makes you reach your top 3 outcomes (if your outcomes are to be safe, all right. Then what about keeping it so in the long term?).

 Beliefs are key

For getting to your top 3 outcomes, you need to believe that it will be okay despite hardship, that hardship is only transient, and that you have all the resources you need to succeed. And that you can brush off failures as something that is not associated with you personally. That events or others made it so. Not you. You need to believe that you are better than others at the game. You need to believe that opportunity is there and will show up. You need to believe that you can find out all the help you’ll need when the time will come.
In a previous newsletter, I told you about the fact that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. As a matter of fact, preparation includes a serious edge towards optimism.

Getting there

All right, but how to turn optimisitic when the general slant of the population is towards pessimism? (We have a kind of depression epidemia upon us in the western world, burnouts abound, as do deeper or masked forms of depression. So, if you are in a medical condition, nothing I say here will be of any use, check with your doctor first).

Some key insights:

1. Realize that optimism is a learnable competency. Yes, it is.
2. Get educated about positive psychology. Recommended reading: Martin Seligman’s learned optimism.
3. Focus on leveraging your strengths. Stack the odds in your favor by taking the road that helps you instead of the hardest road of all.
4. Build a support system and get rid of pessimistic mavens that chant doom and gloom. Especially if they do that for a living.
5. Formulate a strategy and focus on making it true by executing, nothing beats sharp focus when it comes to leaving pessimism behind. Action and anxiety are mutually exclusive.
6. Take time to relax. When the storm comes, the most exhausted get taken away first. The physiological informs the mental. And back. Without a conscious decision to take care well of yourself, how could you ever be optimistic?
7. Check you diet. Eating crap with tons of sugar will for sure not help keeping you positive and optimistic when sugar and insulin take you to a roller coaster ride thrice in a day.
8. Make space for fun. All work and no play makes anyone a dull person. How optimistic can one feel when chained for all day long? My dog isn’t. Why would you?
9. Naysayers can only go so far. Do not become one, it will not help you in any way. You do not want to develop any “create own deep frustration” skill, right?

And do not become nervous about becoming too much of an optimist: hundreds of thousands of years left enough of a trace to keep you safe in the world no matter how optimistic you become!

Wishing you a (very) happy (wonderful) new (optimistic) year,

Optimistically yours!

I am now test driving the Logitech keyboard for iPad 2 by Zagg. I had read a rave review about it and wanted to test drive it first hand.

Well, first thing is that the borders are annoying when typing. But even if they are a hassle, typing on the keyboard is fine and much faster than typing on the iPad’s on-screen keyboard.

The space to type is cramped. I don’t know if I’ll be able to type long stuff on that either. But for reporting on trade shows, making a quick letter and so on, it is a good thing to have. It coples as a protection for the device and as such it is great.

It is pretty cool to have access to the media control keys while working. I like to listen to music while working and this is a plus indeed.

Of course, the keyboard is a national keyboard, so do not expect accelerators like on the virtual keyboard. But you are then able to use all keys and accented characters directly.

The positioning of the iPad 2 on the keyboard feels solid. As I type this, I am adapting my position and it goes faster.

While typing on my lap, I had to switch the device to landscape mode and the it is easier and making more sense. Compared to a laptop, this runs cool. Some think that using a hot PC on one’s lap is bad for fertility. One problem solved then.

And while we are on that, the iPad can be placed on either side, no problem at all.My power cable is on the left of my desk and if this wasn’t possible, I would have to do a convoluted setup to be able to continue working as the device is about depleted (hey, it’s been several days since I made the last charge).

Using the keyboard arrows and shift key helps when selecting text and generally moving it around. All usual OSX shortcuts (Cmd-C, Cmd-X, Cmd-V, Cmd-Arrows) do work and help in restructuring the content.

Adding pictures right away is a big plus, it makes a lot of sense if one is attending a presentation and wants to make a report of it.

When there is a small space available, using a mouse or a trackpad is awkward and here, just reaching for the screen with one’s finger is really helpful.

I’ve been writing this on Pages and there has been no issue with all possibilities.

Switching to full screen to type would be great but is apparently not possible. Too bad. But that is a general limitation of Pages.

While we are on the subject of screen, there is a key on the top left of the keyboard which is equivalent to the home button. So, double type to get the multitask bar, triple type for (in my case) reverse display (comes handy in a dark room).

The keyboard has no backlight, so you’d have to learn key locations before being able to type without errors. I am trying this out in a dark place and it is working nicely after two lines of text.

I am very pleased with this acquisition and highly recommend it to reduce your backpack burden when on the move.