We know Agile rocks, but can Rock be Agile?

If I learned nothing else this Winter, it was that the process of making music in a rock band is pretty damned spontaneous and collaborative - with changing requirements the whole time as singers come and go from rehearsals, too many guitarists of differing abilities attempt to play on the same songs, musical keys need transposing for different vocalists and instruments, and downloaded tabs proving to be largely misleading and mostly wrong.

Some of the funnier moments were when the riffing of our talented lead guitarists and bass player started to go awry (it happened occasionally), and cries of "Jazz!" would go up, seemingly a code word for 'over-wrought bullshit riffing going nowhere here". Or maybe it's just that Tad has a big black Fender Jazz bass?

To the newbie, some rehearsals seemed to confirm every stereotype of rock music (think Spinal Tap), and as the resident 'Nigel' I would occasionally start looking for tiny stonehenges descending from the ceiling of the warehouse. But there is a mojo about a rock band that is so tangible you could use it to keep the 7:30pm Pizza delivery warm while a troublesome vocal is ironed out.


With this in mind, with great trepidation I suggested a little experiment as we kicked off the Christmas/ Summer band this week. An Agile story board - with suggested songs on cards, prioritised at a standup before each rehearsal, building up the set-list and eliminating the cries of "what's next?" and "where's the vocalist for this one gone?"

Would this kill the band's mojo? Plenty of software developers claim Agile does, but they don't work for Lonely Planet ;-) They're using their 'mojo' to build crap code somewhere else.

I spend much of my day job devoted to implementing Agile Software Development at Lonely Planet, where the fundamental principles of managing the delivery of software in a socio-technical fashion have a lot of parallels to the way I observed our band working - particularly getting started and getting organised each Thursday night, but also ensuring close teamwork from a multi-disciplinary musical group, and regularly reviewing what works and what doesn't.

Needless to say there was hue and cry from the artists about "it's not ROCK!" and "you can't organise rock music!"

It's always a little hard to tell among a dozen good-natured Australians in the presence of 2 dozen Carlton Bitter precisely when you are having the piss taken out of you (sometimes easier just to assume 'all the time'). Anyway, I was saved from humiliation by the real musicians grabbing the tools (board, cards, microphone, pens - see the photo) and in a matter of minutes we had the priority song-list for the night.

Someone quickly suggested we add the vocalist's name to the card. No cards would get played if they didn't have the requisite MP3 track to listen to, the lyrics on paper, and Tabs. Some cards got prioritised downwards for when our ace drummer is able to join the team later in the year. A card even got put in the 'not to be developed' column (Dave, we miss you already).

I'm fairly certain when my personal mini-stonehenge arrives it will have 'Scrum-master Flash' or a similar witticism etched on it to remind me of the evening - but anyway, we used to try to organise the set-list on an Excel bloody spreadsheet. Even I can see that certainly is not Rock.

Google Goollery Recognition for Lesley Melody's Paintings

A cool website bubbled to the surface of the blogosphere recently called Goollery.org. It features lots of different expressions of the way Google has changed our lives, many of them artistic, but lots of them practical and inspirational as well.

The great news is that Lesley's Google Earth paintings have been accepted to feature on the site - and there is the Heathrow one above. Such excitement - thanks Goollery!

The 2 paintings featured are in her current Gallery/Exhibition as Artist in Residence in Melbourne Central.

The Etape de Tour Saved My Life - lessons for cyclists (and others)

The 10 things I learned from Open Heart Surgery

The afterword to the 5 part story of how a perfectly innocent doctor's signoff for an Etape de Tour bike race entry form revealed a collapsing aortic heart valve, resulting in 44 year old cyclist Nigel Dalton having open heart surgery in early 2008.

Feel free to make an appropriate hand gesture and go "well, duhhhhh!" at any of these:

1. You can find a way to keep riding bikes after open heart surgery - you do not have to give up your passion, or wrap yourself in cotton wool. Racing - probably not, and you should own the best protective gear possible plus carry some extra equipment (see part 5). Ride with friends who know what to do if there's a tumble, and avoid drafting complete strangers.
   
2. Not all serious health problems have visual, external symptoms. As a fit, active cyclist I had no symptoms at all for what should have been a debilitating condition. My heart took a year on drugs to shrink back to its normal size after surgery. Get an annual medical checkup. I'm talking to you guys out there, mostly.
3. $600 (about $300 after an Australian medicare rebate) spent on a full ECG and stress test is the best investment you can make in your cardiac health if you are in your 40s. Contact your GP or someone like the Victorian Heart Centre at Epworth Hospital in Melbourne. Don't piss around with this stuff, monitor your blood pressure at the very least.
   
4. Get a personal trainer with rehabilitation credentials (like Trewrehab) to manage your physical recovery program after big surgery. Being in a gym with all those athletes around will be much more motivating than being in a class sharing a few exercise bikes and tips on giving up smoking, and I think it's more likely you will avoid the dreaded cardiac depression.
5. If you're ever given the choice of suffering the acute embarrassment of an early in the evening pain-killing suppository by the pretty, charming blonde nurse with tiny, delicate fingers; or waiting until later that night so it doesn't wear off by 5am - take it early. I did, and the night nurse/former Soviet bloc weightlifter with fingers like a rolled up Saturday editions of the New York Times will never know my immense relief at that decision.
   
6. Do what you are passionate about before you suffer a major health problem, so that when you are questioning the meaning of your life afterwards (brought on largely by the avoidance of the opposite condition!), the answer comes fairly easily. Hopefully it was "doing what I am already doing" as I was lucky to discover.
7. It took me 12 months to recover fitness after open heart surgery (valve replacement). They'll tell you 3 months so as not to depress you, but don't count on it. See item 9 as the corollary to this lesson.
   
8. After 2 months, whilst you feel so much better, you are not back to normal. Beta blockers (like Sotalol in my case, to prevent cardiac arrhythmia), anti-coagulants (Warfarin), Panadol and the healing process will combine in ways you never imagined to make some job requirements as a Manager almost impossible. You NEED high blood pressure to 'pop' new ideas from that brain! Get more sleep as you are learning to listen to a whole new set of signals from your body as to what 'tired' and 'enough' are
   
9. It does get better every single day. Celebrate that.
10. Hug your family every day (and your friends whenever you can) because there is a chance in this world you might not see them tomorrow.