Author: bluemonkeydev

Starting With Agile

- bluemonkeydev

An agile review of Agile methodologies

Agile is a group of software methodologies designed to optimize software development projects around self-organizing teams. There are many methodologies around Agile but the concept is just as the name implies, you need to be agile — self-organizing, light on procedure and policies, and most importantly, provide a steady stream of incremental accomplishments moving your project forward daily. The opposite of Agile would the processes used by every traditional big company to implement everything!

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Life Hacking Office Hours

- bluemonkeydev

Adding four more productive hours per week by taking Friday afternoon off

A few years ago we changed our office schedule from 8-5, Monday through Friday, to 7:30-5:30 Monday through Thursday and 7:30-11:30 on Friday, often referred to as “summer” hours by many companies. We thought we would give it a try for a few months over the summer and see how it went, expecting that we would eventually switch back to more traditional hours.

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Finish Every Task in Half the Time

- bluemonkeydev

Smart time management with Parkinson’s Law

Over the past few months I’ve been on a mission to optimize my time and efficiency of task completion. This will not be the last time you read about my pursuit of optimal time utilization – I’ve got a lot to say about the topic. I’m pretty sure I am driving my coworkers crazy, but hopefully they are at least enjoying the ride. After all, our time is so short, we owe it to ourselves to optimize everything we do. Read more

Can’t Someone Else Do That For You? Defining your sweet processes

- bluemonkeydev

Put more time into your business by assigning repetitive tasks using SweetProcess

In general, I have a rule that if you do the same task three times, it needs to be automated. This is a common guideline which I have heard from many engineers and entrepreneurs over the years. However, some tasks are not well suited for automation, especially when the work crosses different platforms, formats, or requires an additional layer of human eyes for quality assurance. Those tasks need to be defined, documented, and passed onto someone else to perform so you can focus on building your business. Read more

How The World Sees You – Book

- bluemonkeydev

Optimizing your team through passion

Sally Hogshead released “How the World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through the Science of Fascination” in July 2014 and it quickly make its way to the New York Times’ and Wall Street Journal’s bestseller lists. I’ve been a huge fan of Sally’s work ever since she was a speaker at the first OTA Sessions back in 2011. So when I heard she had a new book out, I pre-ordered it and cracked the cover the day it arrived. Read more