At BestBrains we are strong believers in the Pomodoro-technique, as a pleasant way to improve our productivity.  This week we gave yet another presentation of the technique. For those who read Danish, there is a review here

Besides the Pomodoro-shaped alarm-clock we have now discovered another thing, that makes our Pomodoros even better. The Pomodoro T-shirt, as the one I'm wearing in the picture. It simply adds another dimension to your Pomodoro sessions. If you want one for yourself you can find it here at Amazon







By Bent Jensen

For the past three months, I have been working with the team in Copenhagen from Barcelona.
There is no business reason for this, it is purely for the experience. Now, there are some obvious disadvantages to working away from the rest of the team. Office smalltalk, while not necessarily directly related to the project at hand, really keeps you in the loop in a way that is hard to obtain over a distance. On the other hand, constraints foster creativity. A real problem is rare and hard to find - and extremely valuable. So if I can help produce problems by working from Spain, I will be quite happy

So far, my random observations are:

1) Skype is amazing. Video conferencing is at a point where it just works. There are glitches and every now and then, the connection will die but overall, having a meeting with the Copenhagen team feels to me like I am present. Having a decent web camera really helps in this matter as having a high quality picture makes a very noticable difference. I bought a couple of Logitech Pro 9000 cams which deliver a very nice quality and frame rate.

2) Timezones matter. We run a very agile process with stand-up meetings every morning (okay, I don't actually stand up but that's because I am in front of the camera) at 9. This is always a good thing but it becomes even more important if you are located elsewhere, just to get in synch every day. However, such meetings are much easier when you are in the same timezone. And while Barcelona and Copenhagen are that, they are in different cultural timezones in the sense that the Spanish have very different eating habits than the Danes. I'm still working on adjusting my daily routine to fit both as well as I can.

3) A good thing about working remotely is that you can actually force peace and quiet if you need to. If I turn off my instant messaging, people can only bother me by calling me which they only will if it is very important. This is much harder to achieve if you are in the same office. We usually solve this by running synchronized Pomodoro's though. I will get back to Pomodoros and working remotely in a later post.

4) If you are already using version control and Google Docs or similar for your code and management, going remote is dead-simple! I was quite astonished to find that I could literally sit down in my Barcelona office and be doing normal work within 10 minutes. Everything works just as it does when I am in Copenhagen. I guess this shouldn't surprise me but still, it was a pleasant experience.

By Kristian Dupont

As I'm beginning to feel a little stuck writing this blog-entry, I get a strong desire to check the news and see what happened in the world since I last checked 30 minutes ago. And I think I also need a fresh cup of coffee. I can imagine myself go down into the kitchen, boil water and add instant coffee to the mug, pour hot water over and add a little milk - heavenly! But instead of following my desires, I take a  look at the small ticking tomato-shaped timer in front of me, and I notice that I still have 15 minutes left to go. I put a mark on a piece of paper on my table, and turn my attention back to my blog-entry with a desire to keep going for the next fifteen minutes. I know very well that the desire to get a cup of coffee or check the news, are just a few of my procrastionation demons. They have haunted me for most of my life, but I now have found the ultimate weapon in the form of a small red tomato-shaped timer.

It was more accident than anything else, that led me to attend Staffan Nöteberg's talk about the pomodoro technique at this years agile conference in Toronto. This accident changed my life, and after that also the lives of my colleagues. Much would have been different had I known it 25 years ago.

The technique was invented by an, at that time, young italian student Francesco Cirillo, who was not too pleased with his own ability to study concentrated. As an experiment he borrowed his mothers kitchen timer, and tried to stay focused for 25 minutes. He did not succed immediately, but gradually developed the technicue to deal with internal and external interruptions. He developed a set of simple artefacts and  planning and improvement tools. As the technique matured, it was shaped to be used by others than just individuals. Also pair-workers and teams can have great benefit of the technique.

Curious? Check the links or attend my presentation in Copenhagen on Thursday  March 5th at 5pm - read more and register here.



By Bent Jensen

A couple of weeks ago I attended an interesting conference. One of the speakers told the story of how the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London had reduced the number of mistakes during surgery and the following handoff between different hospital units. While watching a Formula One race on TV two doctors were inspired - Could standardized choreography used by pit stop teams in Formula One be used to reduce the number of mistakes when transferring patients in hospitals? The short answer -- yes. I suggest you read the full article on learning from Formula One here: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06318/738252-114.stm

The story made me wonder. If hospitals can improve safety and speed by learning from Formula One teams, could the software industry do the same? I realize we don't really have the same degree of physical movement that other industries have - but there is something more to that story. I think what it really shows, is that if you foster an environment of process innovation, and strives for excellence in safety and speed, magic can actually happen

I did some Google-based research and found out that in NASCAR racing, teams have gone from 16 seconds pit stops being good, to 12-13 seconds pit stops being what is expected, during a 10 year period. That is a pretty significant improvement. I think it is quite likely that 10 years from now, the software industry can look back and witness similar improvements - primarily based on the Agile/Lean transformations that are taking place right now.

I think everyone wishes to be part of a team that pushes the limit of what is possible in their domain -- I know I do

By Sune Gynthersen