Project Collaboration Roundup: improve focus, killer coworkers, agile WBS
Posted on 19. Aug, 2011 by ger in New Ways to Work, Roundup
Brain Coral (by Laszlo Ilyes)
Do you want to a) improve your focus at work b) live longer c) connect your agile projects into a larger project WBS? Here’s some interesting posts and articles we found on the interwebs recently.
Understand how your brain works and improve your focus
In this Google Tech Talk, David Rock describes how our brains work at work. He shows why we get distracted and describes some things you can do to improve your focus and reduce stress at work. David Rock is the author of “Your Brain at Work”.
The correlation between co-workers and mortality
In Wired, Jonah Lehrer asks “Are your co-workers killing you?” A recent study from Tel Aviv University has found a correlation between “the perceived niceness of co-workers” and the risk of death. It seems your co-workers are more influence than your boss. The study tracked 820 people over a twenty year period and found;
- “people with little or no “peer social support” in the workplace were 2.4 times more likely to die during the study, especially if they began the study between the ages of 38 and 43. In contrast, the niceness of the boss had little impact on mortality.
Jonah also mentions a larger UK study which tracked 28,000 government workers since 1967. That study linked the person’s “perception of control” with their work peer social support and mortality. Jonah summarizes the outcome:
- “the only thing worse than an office full of assholes is an office full of assholes telling us what to do.”
In July on this blog Donal discussed the knowledge worker’s perception of control. I wonder if social business platforms like Jive could be good for your health? Maybe our product Goshido can increase “perception of control” for your team (and lengthen their lives)?
Connecting Agile projects to Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)
Glen B. Alleman on the HerdingCats blog, describes how you connect agile projects with the WBS of large projects like US federal government contracts. He links the agile taxonomy of work to the traditional WBS.
- Agile Epics correlate to WBS Program Events
- Agile User Stories correllate to WBS Accomplishment Criteria
- Agile Features correlate to WBS work packages
- Tasks are the same in both Agile and WBS
Here at Goshido we believe there can be more than four layers in a project.
- “Agile does a good job of defining the outcomes of each iteration, and managing the contents of those iterations during the Planning process. What is needed is an upper level process.”
Thank you for reading
We hope you found something useful. Please try Goshido, our collaboration & project management platform. Goshido can help you and your teams work better together (and maybe help you live longer).