Managing Objectives

One of the things that I decided to improve this year is how I manage my personal development objectives. I outlined the following requirements.

• I need to manage a backlog objectives.
• I want these objectives to be broken down into tasks of a granularity that can be completed in my spare time.
• I want a task board so that I can see the tasks remaining broken into monthly sprints.
• I'll need to access to this data from any location.
• I'll want to collaborate with zangl ltd for some gaming and mobile development tasks.

 

For me, the next step was straight forward. I logged on to Visual Studio Online and created a new Team Foundation Service Project called 'Development Objectives'.

 

The interface is intuitive, the task management is straightforward, the backlog can be easily groomed and it even has a burndown chart to keep me on track.

 

My Personal Task Board

 

So far it is proving the perfect solution, get started.

Meetings: Where Work Goes to Die

For no reason at all, I was reminded of one of Jeff Atwood's blog posts the other day Meetings: Where Work Goes to Die

Basically it suggests that, although communication is what we need to succeed, we need to make sure that time spent in meetings is time well spent.

Here are a few of his methods to keep a meeting succinct.

• No meeting should ever be more than an hour, under penalty of death.
• Every meeting should have a clearly defined mission statement. (Agenda/Goals)
• Do your homework before the meeting.
• Make it optional.
• Summarize to-dos at the end of the meeting.

If meetings are part of your life, please watch the following video, as recommended by @Toopots