Well, it’s Christmas Eve here in Florida, and Baby it’s Not Hot Outside 😉  Only 68 degrees, with a high today of 79! Brrrhhhh.
That got me to thinking about Christmas Past….so for all of you that had matching PJ’s – and even those of you who didn’t… Merry Christmas and a Happy Healthy 2014.
Until Your next trip to LisaLand…Happy Holidays!
A few months ago, several of the ITSM Academy team (including yours truly), earned our Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) Certificates. Â While Scrum – and Agile – are typically utilized for software development projects, we quickly realized a lot of the knowledge and tools that can be applied to any project type.
Here at the Academy, we’ve undertaken one of the biggest projects we’ve ever tackled. We are standing up a Learner Portal, www.my.itsmacademy.com. Â This portal will touch every line of business, and is a huge value-add for our learners. Â To learner more about it, please click here.
When we came home from our Scrum training we were, “hot and happy and ready to go”. We were planning on applying our new skills to the Learner Portal project.  But then the real world reared its head and we didn’t immediately, or correctly, begin applying the knowledge.
I’ve said, since we started the company, that we will never use that terrible expression about the Cobbler not being able to fix his own kids shoes. Â Based on this, and our desire to recoup our return on investment, we knew we had to buckle down and built a plan. Â So that’s what we did.
We didn’t start fully, we probably didn’t even start “right”… but we started.
We identified our first Sprint – and have been running ever since! With each Sprint retrospective, we take the time to improve the way we are using Agile and our Sprints.
The result has been that we are getting more “ship-able products” to market.  These include (but are not limited to 🙂
So, in a nutshell, Agile is keeping the Academy rolling at a brand new speed!  We are excited to introduce the courses above, which will help our clients and alumni start Sprinting too 😉
Until your next trip to LisaLand…Happy Sprinting!
No post this week, I am doing my America duty and serving on a Jury. Â There is lots of great people observing (one of my favorite pastimes), but in general, it’s not pretty. Â We are a very complaining people as a society!
I want to get on a history soap box and remind my fellow jurors about the fundamental right to trial by a jury of your peers…but I fear it wouldn’t do any good and just drag the whole process out even longer.
The good news is, there is a blog bubbling up about my experience. Â But until the trial is complete, I can’t talk about it…
Until your next trip to LisaLand…Happy People Observing!
“Hi, my name is Lisa, and I’m a workaholic”. For those of you who are reading my blog (thank you!) I think it’s important that you know that about me.
Since #ILoveMyJob, this really works out for me. I am a process junkie, and I really love fine tuning and re-engineering our process here at ITSM Academy so we can deliver the most efficient and effective training possible. As any small business owner can tell you, your company can consume your life. To paraphrase Michael Gerber, you not only have to work in your business, but on your business. And that can be time consuming.
It is so easy to get lost in building the company, that I sometimes put my personal life on a back burner. And it’s not good or fair to my family, or frankly, myself.
As often is the theme in my posts, years ago I heard an expression that really resonated with me. “You need to be sure to water both gardens”.
Yes, it’s very important to me that I grow my business, but it’s even more important that I continue to grow my marriage, and foster the most important relationship in my life, the one with my husband.
Plus, the added benefit, when I stop and hang out with my husband, we do tons of cool stuff. We go to the beach, canoe, ride bikes, travel, hang out, see friends, play with our dogs, drink beers, etc. Important side note; I may use #ILoveMyJob a lot, but I also can hashtag #ILoveMyHusband and #ILoveMyBudLight with equal amounts of enthusiasm!
Now it’s 6:30 on a Saturday morning and the hubby is stirring. Let me go water my other garden 😉
Until your next trip to LisaLand…Happy Gardening!
mylisaland 