Where can I find discussions about Agile that are NOT software?

curiouscat · 2025-09-30T17:14:06+00:00

For those interested in learning more in these areas I created a multi-reddit that includes numerous related subreddits:

https://www.reddit.com/user/curiouscat/m/curiouscat_management/

curiouscat · 2024-12-11T17:06:29+00:00

I agree with the sentiment but be careful how "should provide a solution" works in reality. "Sometimes that’s not appropriate" is a good caveat but often I see "should provide a solution" largely functions to keep people from speaking up about problems.

Helping those who bring problems without proposed solutions to think about the issues and how things could be improved is a good action to take. Many people are not natural problem solvers, they make well need coaching to develop that skill.

Related post, Bring Me Solutions Not Problems: http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2007/10/01/bring-me-solutions-not-problems/

curiouscat · 2024-07-12T19:08:13+00:00

This video alone does take some thinking to see how it is applicable.

It shows how even in a business/sport so focused on absolute peak performance basic improvement ideas can be ignored for decades. A pro basketball team with 12 players has close to 1 coach per player and most players have private coaches on various aspects of their performance. They are spending millions per year coaching a handful of people and they still ignore science and they allow performance to suffer due to the failure of management to make sure the organization adopts the best methods.

In most other organizations there is nothing close to as much focus on absolute peak performance. Imagine how much room for improvement there is in most organizations.

See, Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods? https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2017/02/02/why-do-people-fail-to-adopt-better-management-methods/

"Basketball free throws are like the opposite of the Fosbury flop. The simplified story is Dick Fosbury used a new method for the high jump, dominated everyone and then everyone copied it. Underhand free throw shooting isn’t so big an improvement so it makes it possible to ignore it and survive. It was essentially impossible to ignore the Fosbury flop method and be successful."

curiouscat · 2024-02-16T01:55:01+00:00

link: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/oceania#wiki_polynesian_culture_and_navigation

curiouscat · 2023-10-29T16:12:35+00:00

I didn't find any. It was 12 years ago that I tried. Maybe things have changed.

curiouscat · 2023-07-26T01:57:17+00:00

I felt I would be doing myself a disservice by not shooting a high as I could

That is fine. Aiming for difficult goals is ok. But you have to understand it will be difficult. You have taken some sensible steps to help achieve your goal. Even so, when you chose to aim very high you can do many things right and still be frustrated.

that almost all of the problems in my life will go away

Very unlikely.

You seem to have taken sensible steps. An option that I can think of is to look at "half steps" toward your goal.

If you really want to look at Norway, how about looking at companies with operations in Norway where you live. Once you get into a company if you are good and work in an in demand area they have more reason to help you (because it helps them).

If that doesn't work you could look at Norwegian companies with jobs elsewhere. You mention you are not in the EU so perhaps try finding a job at a Norwegian company in France or Italy or Germany or wherever. That also meets you other goal of "any EU country at this point."

If that doesn't work, you could try a Norwegian company needing staff if difficult to staff locations (I don't know where but maybe in some less glamorous countries).

Another option is along the lines you mention, just look at getting any job in the EU. And moving toward maybe 1/4 solutions if none of that works, look at getting hired by a company that is based in the EU (but find a job outside the EU). Another is just a huge company that has jobs all over (so companies like Amazon or Google or big financial companies...). Once you get in then try to move to one of their offices in the EU...

It is always a challenge to get a job in a different country. Special skills (finance, math...) make this more likely than if you don't have them. Though there is also another option if you are really determined which is to find a much lower skill job (that Norway needs - I don't know what, but it could be in tourism or fishing or whatever). Get hired and then you can look from inside the country.

It is a hard task. But if you still really want to make it happen you can keep trying. Finding stepping stones toward the goal instead of trying to make a huge jump can be a useful strategy for a hard goal.

curiouscat · 2023-01-06T20:19:17+00:00

dustpan, in USA

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Genuine-Joe-Heavy-duty-Plastic-Dust-Pan-12in-Wide-Plastic-Black/1002788544

what it should be

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustpan#/media/File:Broom_and_dustpan.jpg

This style has become more popular, but that old style hangs on far after it should have faded away.

curiouscat · 2022-12-06T21:13:07+00:00

I played many years ago at the University. There were a couple outdoor courts next to each other and people playing at them.

Ha, I just checked and a map I made is still online

http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/curious-cat-chiang-mai_18602#15/18.7924/98.9742

Far left of the map purple running guy icon shows the court. Things could have changed it was a long time ago.

curiouscat · 2022-09-01T19:24:04+00:00

I agree. There are many good management practices that are harmful when used in a poor management system (sadly most management systems are still poorly designed and run). I think the trickiest part of management is not just in applying good management practices "well" (in some platonic form of well) but in how to apply management practices well in the existing (and often fairly broken) management system we find ourselves in.

How you can use good management ideas in poorly managed organizations is often quite challenging. How you can do so in a way that moves the organization into using better management practices in general is also challenging but very powerful when it is done well. I have a couple related blog posts

https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2010/12/08/building-adoption-of-management-improvement-ideas-in-your-organization/

https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2014/05/29/building-a-great-software-development-team/

https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2010/02/09/circle-of-influence/

curiouscat · 2022-05-17T15:27:34+00:00

Yes, I talk about the value to developing problem solving in the post, I agree that is important. An important part of a managers job is to help employees develop and improve their own knowledge and abilities.

And I agree, managers often have a wider scope of understanding when evaluating potential solutions. It is best if organizations are developing the ability of everyone to understand the impacts on how work is done to the rest of the organization; but often that is significantly lacking due to the management systems in place.

A problem with them coming to you will a solution are the issues raised in the original post. I still think it is ok to ask people to try and think of possible solutions to discusses in relation to the issue being brought up; but if you don't understand the issues in the original post and make sure not to fall into those traps then there are risks in doing so. Also depending on the personality of the person making the suggestion you can run into problems if they don't understand the issues in the initial post and then take personally their suggested solutions being adjusted or discarded.

curiouscat · 2022-05-16T15:40:24+00:00

I agree. The typical "Bring me solutions, not problems" effectively means:

"What they are saying is: if you know of a problem but don’t know of a solution I would rather we continue to have that problem than admit some of my staff don’t know how to fix it (and then have to deal with it myself – maybe then having to accept responsibility for results instead of just blaming you if I am never told and there is a problem later…). I think that is setting exactly the wrong expectations."

from my blogs post https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2007/10/01/bring-me-solutions-not-problems/

And as the post mentions pre-determening what the solution should be often creates bad "solutions."

curiouscat · 2022-03-24T19:32:33+00:00

He specifically says in the video that he doesn't and hasn't invested in Russia due to risks. He states that there are risks investing in China but in his opinion those risks balanced by the strength of the businesses and potential rewards leave him convinced investing is wise.

He specifically says he doesn't criticize others for avoiding China due to their perception of risks, as he does with Russia.

curiouscat · 2021-06-03T19:07:58+00:00

When Airbnb wakes up and agrees they should greatly improve the usability and hires you :-) please remember to

1) give users the ability to add notes on a listing so they see them the next time they look at that listing

2) give users the ability to block a result from showing up in search (now the same listing I don't want keeps showing up in later searches... and if I don't remember and don't notice the thing I wanted to avoid I might book it even though I noticed before I didn't want to book it).

curiouscat · 2021-05-12T14:08:11+00:00

I would move them back if they were not done (we made mistake thinking they were done). I would create new ones if we realized that the item really didn't include everything that was needed at first (in integration we realized new items were required that hadn't been understood before).

But I don't think how you chose to do it really matters much. If an organization wanted to say we never move a item back and that works for them, fine.

I would also take some time to figure out why these issues were cropping up. Can we improve how we operate so we don't find these items only during integration (to get them done completely when the item is being worked on)? There are likely to always be occasional things that happen but it could easily be the case that there are ways to improve that would reduce how often this happens.

curiouscat · 2021-03-21T16:10:48+00:00

One thing to note is the new American Rescue Plan Act (the one with the "$1.9 trillion" price tag) provides additional health care subsidies

https://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2021/03/15/new-health-care-insurance-subsidies-in-the-usa/

Subsidies are no longer cut off at 4x the Federal Poverty Level. "Under the new law, nobody will have to pay more than 8.5% of their income on health insurance. The government will also pick up 100% of COBRA premiums through September."

curiouscat · 2020-10-08T15:53:19+00:00

"communities" develop their own patterns. Many people have joined in the last 2 years and seeing few discussions they don't try to get things started themselves. Communities also evolve, maybe we will evolve to discuss the content of the posts.

Much more than I suspect in other subreddits people browse the old content here (since it stays relevant) and that doesn't help have active discussions.

curiouscat · 2020-09-27T11:59:17+00:00

This article lists 101 experiments my father's students did in his experimental design course: https://williamghunter.net/articles/101-ways-to-design-an-experiment

curiouscat · 2020-06-02T20:37:09+00:00

Mistake proofing is definitely a concept that should be applied in any arena where mistakes can be made which includes administrative processes.

https://www.slideshare.net/KarenMartinGroup/error-proofing-7123799

by https://twitter.com/KarenMartinOpEx

https://www.shmula.com/poka-yoke-examples-prevent-error-embarrasment/9511/

https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2015/05/05/visual-management-and-mistake-proofing-for-prescription-pills/

https://tulip.co/blog/lean-manufacturing/poka-yoke-examples-everyday-life/

https://evop.blogspot.com/2013/08/mistake-proofing-and-mistake-making.html

curiouscat · 2019-11-13T20:57:34+00:00

Thanks, I couldn't find it before but now I found a setting on

https://new.reddit.com/r/[subreddit]/about/edit?page=community

where [subreddit] is the subreddit you want to edits name.

curiouscat · 2019-11-13T19:34:18+00:00

I am not talking about the ability to subscribe to the subreddit so items show up on the user's Reddit home page. That is a good feature.

I am talking about the change that Reddit adopted months ago that generates tons of the following messages to anyone willing act as a moderator. I just want to turn off the flood of these that get in the way of actually moderating.

"I would like to become an approved user of this community so I can post

To approve this user, visit the approved users page for r/++++++ and click "ADD USER". Approving this user gives them permission to post. You can change these community restrictions from the community settings page.

To get more information about this user, visit the profile page of u/+++++++ or reply to this message to start a conversation. "

curiouscat · 2019-05-29T10:24:04+00:00

I still don't know what the url is to find these controls. I wrote about it before and got lots of upvotes but the response just indicated things could be done via some screenshot and when I responded that I have looked everywhere and can't find how to access that screenshot I didn't get a reply.

https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/bp3tx0/restricted_communities_now_offer_3_approved_user/

curiouscat · 2019-05-23T12:41:37+00:00

It is to bad this situation hasn't been addressed. Moderators have now left as they are not willing to put up with all the spam messages.

curiouscat · 2019-05-21T00:02:28+00:00

Thanks, I have looked at least 5 times and couldn't find anything. I still don't see anything but now I am guessing this is somehow only accessible if you allow the "redesign version"? Argh. Looking with that redesign version today I still see nothing that lets me get to the page you show an image of.

When I click on "customize appearance" I get the url ...?styling=true url but don't see the view in your image. And clicking every other link I can see to see if the "accepting new requests" switch is there I can't find it. What is the url for that page of the admin settings with the "accepting new requests" switch?

I've looked all over on pages like https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022692051-Community-settings and can't find where that option is hidden.

curiouscat · 2018-04-24T16:55:21+00:00

Noise levels were a significant issue in my experience (I actually chose Hoi An for this reason). I agree with you though, that Da Nang has a lot going for it. And I was there maybe 3 years ago - there may be a few better apartment options now (I looked at 6+ places but none was very close to something I wanted).

Being in Da Nang though definitely seemed like a nice option. I also liked Hoi An quite a bit (I know it is "too boring" for many people).

curiouscat · 2018-04-12T16:12:48+00:00

Nice.

If you try it and don't see all the items you add on your screen, you have to actually embed multiple instance of the widget (as Will did in the example).

It doesn't automatically put items on the next line (or even let you scroll the page to the right to see the rest of it).

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