 Happy New Year everybody and welcome back to episode 76 of the Agile Pubcast. My name is Paul Goddard and we'd like to firstly say thank you to all the people that donated money to our charity single this Christmas. It was a real success and we've donated altogether four hundred and thirty-eight pounds that's going straight towards the shelter charity this year so thank you very much for that. Also need to welcome some new patrons to our following, Wayne and Theodorus so welcome to you guys thank you very much for joining us. This pubcast is back in Bristol at a pub called The Bay Horse where we met up with Nigel and we just visited an amusement arcade and that of course sparked some conversation and also a new competition for you to enter so stay in tune for that a bit later on. Anyway happy new year once again and let's get cracking with the first pubcast of 2020. Play the jingle. One of the sort of finest drinkings that was in, if you rule out all the others. Any history image? Yes, I had my leaving drinks here when I left my first student job working in Dixon's. So that was back in the mid 90s. Dixon's, oh you can't say it from here, it was where shops are now. Yes, so opposite the new box was made with Dixon's. Very good. Happy times? No, I quit on Christmas Eve. Why? Because I didn't want to work at Christmas. So I just walked around the world. £2.80 an hour, I think it would be £2.80 an hour. Happy times. What are you doing boys? You look quite fruity. Yes, so I think the readers, the listeners deserve to know that Jeff has stitched Paul and I right up. Send Jeff to the bar and he comes back with us. I am on the Paul's favourite drink, the brother's rhubarb encustered in the cider. And it is the sweetest Paul said it was last week. I don't think it was actually the same. Or different. Weed. The same genre. The same flavour. This is incredibly sweet. And I'm drinking from the same company of brothers. Brewery, Brewery. I was here. And they were drinking palmer violet flavour cider. Wow, nice. Those are the little violet sweets you should get. Yeah, obviously as you can expect it's mega sweet. It's right up my alley. Sophie Woodcock used to sit next to me. She made palmer violet vodka when we were eating. It worked. Not in the office but in a spare time. Hello Sophie. I'm drinking Dead Pony Club. Cheers. What's that all about? Not very sweet, thankfully. It's from Brew Dog. Oh, okay. Are they Bristol based? Yeah, they are. It's based in Bristol. They're nice. Quite, I think it's only about three and a half percent. Pretty good. Yeah, but good for early afternoon. Before we're attacking exercise. For the listeners we're about to head off. This will be a shorter day for a mental challenge. A puzzle, a escape room, stroke puzzle, booked. You're locked in a room so you can get out. But on our way here we happen to walk past a kids' arcade which grabbed Nigel and Paul's attention. Which is saying I'll pick the kids. I've got dragged in. And it's one of those where you pay ridiculous amounts of money to play games to win tickets that you could win prizes with or you could have bought for a fraction of the price at the arcade. It's something my kids love to do and I hate because why don't I just buy the things in the first place? That's been fun, though. I turned up and I won the basketball and I won the bowling. So there we go. We've won some prizes. I'll explain to you what the prizes are. Some of you might be of a certain age like me. I used to get, my parents would buy me these basically to keep me quiet a lot of the time. So these are kind of cheap foam-based flying gliders, flying planes that you kind of assemble. They're in a very thin packet. And we've got a couple of different models here. And normally World War II themed, aren't they? Yeah, so these are jet fighter flying gliders. You make them and you can throw them around the office if that's what you want and we're going to give these away, aren't we? I just realised something about this. They're called jet fighters flying gliders. Look at them jets. If you look at the back, I am pretty sure none of them are jets. So we've got two. They're all elephants. Despite having got five here to give away. But we've only actually got two different types of planes. So we've been kind of a little bit short-changed. But yeah, so you can win this by answering the question and the five closest answers will win a plane. But if only one person answers, you go for it. Put a bit of fun for Christmas. Exactly. Questions coming later in the... Is it? Yeah, but you have to listen to the end. Yeah, get to the end of your question. Cool, sneaky. Spoiler. Now, but what made me interested about the arcade we were talking about this earlier on is how it's gamification. You were saying how it's so much cheaper just to buy these toys while I'm playing these games. Paul and I and someone else were very enthralled with it and probably enjoyed it and had a good time generating that meagre return because of the gamification of the process. Now, we hear a lot about gamification and how it works in general. How do you feel about it? I'm more for it, in a way. This is a cost money. Yeah, well, maybe it does. But, no, you get more for it. Or is there... I don't know. I think I'd probably prefer... I think it's a business model, by the way. I think I'd prefer to pay a figure for an amount of time rather than... Exactly, yeah. I am the Scrooge and my family love going to those things and I hate them. So you think the puzzle of the idea where you pay for a certain bit of time to complete challenges. So the time and materials gamification more pleasant to you sort of the bonus level objective model. Do you know what I think? Actually, it's the prizes that bug me. I don't think I'd be as annoyed if there were no prizes at the end of it. So you just eliminate the tickets or whatever. I hadn't thought that. But yeah, I think the prizes are patronising. I think those places of work, I think the prizes were good. And they've been good as in cost. I mean, good as in just some thought of gold into them. We had to scrabble. Those planes are quite good, he says, but we had to scrabble around for those. Some of the other prizes were truly poor, both financially and as an item you would have a lot of quality. I think if there were a few good things, it would be far more interesting. But to a child, those prizes are you're not their target market. Well, you might be the parent of the target market. I'm your customer. I'm not the user. You're paying. To a child, my eight-year-old would love some of that. If he feels he's won that, whether it's the fact that it hasn't cost me six quids, whatever it is to get some of that, he thinks that's a great prize. Here's something interesting. I didn't realise there were tickets until they started pumping out the machine after the first game. We were playing just to compete, if you remember. It was the competition aspect that was fun for us. I've enjoyed that more without the tickets and it reduced my experience. I remember I was going to do a work, so I remember something in Nokia when I joined to try and take it back to some kind of work context here. When I joined, they were in the middle of a fairly intense release of a project, a change and when I got there, there was an element of gamification that was really cool, because it became meaningless. They gave it a word, they called it kudos. It was basically like a reward you gained kudos or going the extra mile, putting in the extra effort, whatever it was. Teams gave kudos and individuals gave kudos. I think it was some kind of it was monetary in a sense that you got vouchers maybe for Peter Express or Pizza. But it became, in Nokia it became to have the opposite effect. It was ridiculed because it doesn't mean anything to me. I don't even want it and it became a standing joke. The tickets in a sense became quite stressful. You think it was infantilising style? Yeah, and I think it was it wasn't necessarily rewarding the right behaviours either. It was by giving people who were putting extra effort in more treats. So we had fun competing. Do you think that's an aspect that should reward more to work? Well, that can go both ways. I think it can raise the bar in terms of but I think it can potentially divide larger teams of teams that then start to treat themselves as quite defensively. I think we can't we're not like them or we don't want to do a path like that. We're different. For me, the competition sort of thing works if everyone believes they're capable of winning. So if one team thinks they can't win because they've got inferior environment, inferior team, inferior product or whatever, then they feel like nothing they do would be good. So just check it out. I was going to say competition is something that and I see it even though in training classes that I do, even when I tell people not to compete, they still compete. As soon as you introduce any element of sub teams or a the same problem across two tables it becomes a contest. When you create an ass, you create a damn. It's the most amazing thing. If it's don't help them, it can be don't help them. One thing I noticed around competition I think that's probably for me the bigger thing is competition gets yourself to the best teams I've seen. They will enjoy beating their personal best rather than worrying about what anyone else is doing. They will just try and constantly raise their own bar. Is that like golf with your handicap? I think it could be against someone. Golf is so old sport. It could be against sprinters. They'll try and beat their best. They can't control their people there. There's no point. What about hot housing? Do you remember that? A decade ago now. That was using competition to get to a short-term end goal. How do you feel genuinely about that? My experience at the time was fine. I remember ridiculing the idea. At the time I think it was done in a fun and healthy way. There was no sabotaging, there was no bad feeling about losing. Everyone was in there applauding the winning idea. I think that kind of competition can drive innovation. It can drive creativity. I got motivated. Hot housing itself in BT had a tended to have a very negative negative feedback margin because of the intensity. It was for a company like BT it was a radically different way of working. I think that's the thing. I think as you went in now it wouldn't be better. It was just such a big leap from where they were. Very comfortable distance. Deliver something every couple of years. Maybe. Even when you look at BT it didn't really have a competitive market. Very much. Even employees didn't see themselves because everyone gets along. We're all in this together. We're a public utility. We can't but we don't have a competition. The element of being competitive wasn't perhaps as abundant. Now I'm much more of a competitive market these days. I think about even the competition style would have been looks down upon. It wouldn't have been rewarded. It would have been negatively thought about. Someone like some of our previous bosses we had someone who was being competitive. People like that would have been a little bit dismissive. What's so bad? You look at the extreme of sales teams who are competing so there's a win and a win is the best and if you don't then you lose. Maybe your wife working for a company at the end of every year the lowest boomer would not get renewed or something like that. You used to get up but you'd fight at any one level to a certain extent. Which I don't think is a good thing. It's not the reason I don't like the apprentice TV shape. It just encourages all the wrong behaviours. It's like big brother when they first did big brother they thought we'll get some interesting people to go and see what happens. They realised what they want to put very weird, dangerous, malfunctioning people to go there to get car crashes which makes great TV. Same with the apprentice, nearly every one of the apprentice you wouldn't like but it's like with Trump in America good TV means bad policy. No politics nice. Politics is fine. So it's 2020? Yes. Do we have clear vision? What's your new year's resolution? I still gave up on it. My 2020 outlook is to get out and see more conferences. Have you got a number on it? No. That's my target isn't it? How many did you go to last year? No. I don't think I've seen a lot of this. Which is the first for me in 12 months. But I've told you before because 2018 London wore me out so I had a bit of a self-inflicted age. Do you think 4 is a good number? I've got a few more than that really. If I had the time... You have the time? If I have the... You've prioritised your claim? Yes. I think my 2018 was fairly busy in conferences. I think I did like I don't know how many I think and we married from one whichever it was and we had been gathering for that. That was 2019-20. It was Minneapolis and London. I spoke about those and I do four speaking sessions when I got past London. I was like okay now I'm a bit dry. I took Austin off so I wore me up again towards Vienna last year. I don't know what those ideas are going to talk about so I'm hoping to do hopefully two gatherings maybe Edge R 2020 maybe I may apply again and fail again Do we know where the European one is? This one. I'm going to apply as a location. This year. It's always hard that these first couple of weeks I used to write in a checkbook. Who is a checkbook? I looked for my checkbook just the other day I thought I'd have a use for a check but I didn't even find it. I can't honestly remember the last time I wrote a check. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Newest resolutions, mine's a bit more weight. I'm half a stone down so hopefully 2020 I'll carry on that progress. Do you have a number? I'm not sure. New velocities are an internal number or an external number but I've got an idea on how to get there. Velocity is the pace then. I know. I've got an idea of the pace I've got an idea of the outcome I will share the output I will not share the outcome I will share. The outcome would be dinner the output would be weight loss which I'm not going to share in those numbers but maybe the total calories you have each day I don't know what that is because I got to New York maybe the fastest I've ever been I was kind of hoping that I would have team mastery at the end of the month but that's what I'm going to have. I don't think so, no. We had a couple of hiccups not hiccups really we made conscious choices to improve the quality of the illustrations so we did some prototypes and some estimations we came up with that got some feedback and some of the options that we came up with people really liked so we decided to invest more time in that which then made me miss the deadline with the printers which then linked into Chinese New Year or whatever or something so it'll be a little bit later but the best things go over the line no point rushing it no point rushing it does that bother you? I know you and you have missed this before and we talked about this in our advanced classes but you are a pre-classmate you like to get shit done does that bother you? it does things that are being delayed I've had this group of collaborators who have really helped me talking to them about it a while ago and they said, do you know what Jeff? I think the person I've been most disappointed at is Jeff I put a message out there to the people who pre-ordered it and they said, generally speaking all people said it's fine rather wait a second I'm a lot better with it as a result of that I don't like having things I know you do especially with a lot of the stuff that's left inside of my control yeah that's the worst but you feel a bit of a control person but no please please don't look forward to that obviously a bit nervous but look forward to it because you want to be braver to say a date at this point or you're going to leave a TBC yeah I march I think it's very much actually the thing about this so I changed the subject slightly back to what you said about conferences you know I cheekily gave you a four conference then I was thinking it would be interesting to get some recommendations from people because I tend to do the gatherings I always aspire towards Agile but the other ones I think I'll be interested in I'll be able to expand my mind a little bit I'll expand my options a little bit and you don't know that by talking to the same person so if anyone has got some suggestions that would be pretty cool sweet the Agile podcast Nigel E. Baker that's right let him know what the best conference is that he should be looking at but later this year the personal development wise I want to try and get some more product based conferences that's what I want to try and do quite interesting though again like you said it's trying to get out my current level of thinking and my current paradigm I think it takes some inspiration from other areas that would be nice hmm do you have any predictions for the year I don't know what to say isn't it I don't know what I think I have yeah it's um I think the world since you moved in faster than ever but my own personal sense of self has never been slow you know in that I've got ways settled with who I am now so my own personal world is quite stable so whilst the world is racing around with Brexit and Trump and politics and money and social media and all this that's all racing around actually as a human being we're both racing in an Asian so I'm sure the world will change a lot but I'm also quite sure I can handle that cool I think we've changed a lot haven't we we're talking about this me and the wife are talking about this in the days all the personality profiles you did when you first joined BT all these things so of course between snake oil and chicken engine yeah and um we just came up in conversations there was one for the kids and we did a similar to see if they came out anything like us and I did the same test that I did I think back in the day in BT and I come up with not very different but subtly different and I think you do change I think your outlook changed so it's just reminding me that if you always see yourself as that type of personality now you will probably know also this was a self dialogue like I saw a psychologist maybe in a magazine but something about psychology where if you tell someone about themselves they start acting like that dates or something you've got such a great sense of human and then all the members start trying to be funny and witty and these do you say someone who's not funny at all and then they put the effort in to try and play up to that image and so you can self-program yourself so you can say I'm just quiet and you're always quiet and in fact when you're just telling yourself you're quiet people confuse status with personality so for instance you're someone quiet because you're new in your job or that's because you're new in the job feeling like you don't know what you're doing you don't know anyone and in fact as you get more mature and more confident in life personality doesn't change it just lets you reveal I remember you thinking something a while ago was there a cartoon I think about how the cartoon one person was saying to the other person oh my god you're such a good public speaker you must be so lucky to be born I can't do that I just practised a lot and then it must have been it must be a natural thing some people are born with that is that right that little bell I'm not sure but that could be me but yeah you have to practice you get better instead of a new practice because we get that last week we were doing first course of the year and we did some visual flip charts quite often people say I can't draw, I wish I could draw and poor night we're no artists but we did some training practice, we try to keep it simple and it makes something effective but if you tell yourself you can't draw then you just won't draw people always ask me I'm a public speaker you're so good at it, how did you learn what course did you take you've always been dribbled it I don't know how I learned I wasn't a good as a child I just did it I just keep doing it I did find an old VHS cassette in the loft and I did go on some training courses of public speaking and one of them, that VHS was from the training of public speaking where they videoed you to write a presentation give the presentation to the camera I wanted to throw it away but I didn't digitize and get it online you've got the numbers of views actually I may have done they film you and then you watch it back I may have done that but it rendered us one of the most painful experiences of my life that's the prize you should have given away rather than the VHS I'll leave you in my will I've still got my old BT videos from all the stuff we were doing actually I'll be listening where talking heads and heart well I try to but every time I try to convert it into one of the paid software the sound doesn't come across I can play the video but it won't it inputs I'll sort of, I'm a bit of an expert there's a few of them like that there's also some other talking heads I did about just about BT yeah, bad thinning hair back at age and I hide it back to our competition what's the question I reckon we were in the arcades no more than 15 minutes 15-20 minutes so let's say 15 minutes we came away with 5 planes not everything 5 planes 5 planes don't disclose that we had some sweets no you gotta give them the data so 5 5 planes 1 pack of love heart sweets that's a small pack and a refresh that went to pools my stomach I got nothing you walked out in it so the question is to win those 5 planes and those 2 sweets how many in order to get how many tickets did we have to win so the closest 5 answers will win a glider signed by Jeff, Paul and Nigel all right so get them in do your answers to at the agile pubcast and it'll give you a good way to start hashtag in it you're gonna hashtag hashtag playing competition agile competition for the win for the win for the win let's fight please somewhere about that but we need to go so cheers cheers everyone see you soon