16 March 2011

Welcome Coasties!

I had a great time at Coast Guard HQ today, talking about FIST with a very cool group of America's Maritime Guardians. I wanted to say a public thanks for the warm welcome and the engaging questions... I hope they enjoyed our time together as much as I did. And a special thanks to those who were able to stick around for lunch afterwards. I look forward to continuing the conversation and hope you'll all keep in touch!

I also wanted to mention I recently updated the FIST Handbook. for those who haven't seen it previously, I should explain that in keeping with my preference for simplicity, the handbook is just a Google Document with a bunch of links for further reading. The big update is this: it now it also has links to some of the tools I talk about (extreme programming, SEI's Acquistion Archetypes report, etc). Whee!

Happy reading!

4 comments:

Dan Taylor said...

I had a blast today! I can't thank you enough for coming out to share with us. You've challenged everyone to think differently about the impact of declining budgets. Your ideas will make a difference in the way folks think about what's possible when we're intentional about our values and use them to shape action.

I look forward to continuing the dialogue. I'll certainly make sure you know when we succeed at shipping the first tiny piece of CG-LIMS.

Updated Google Doc with links is a great time saver. You get an "A" in simplicity for that!

Thanks Dan!

Dan Taylor said...

Dan,
Here's the link I promised to Nancy Duarte's TEDx talk that describes a common structure of the presentations of great communicators.

I think it'll resonate with you as you work to change the world.

http://vimeo.com/20618288

Best,
dan

Unknown said...

Excellent - thanks so much!

Dan Taylor said...

You'll be glad to know that your presentation made an impression on our two star Chief Acquisition Officer.

Yesterday I had a brief conversation with him about delivering my project as a non-major acquisition, and he mentioned that it sounded like we were trying to do that FIST thing we heard about last week. Exactly. I've been trying to move us in that direction for years.

Today in a follow up meeting with several flags and SES's, he surprised the group by referring to me "showing him the FIST." That caught the attention of some of the folks who hadn't been there for your presentation. The gears were turning in their minds, asking themselves what he meant by Dan, "showing him the FIST?" Then we walked them through the acronym and they breathed a sigh of relief.

Your talk couldn't have come at a better time for my project. It has helped us be explicit about what we value and being willing to make tradeoffs specifically in terms of those values.