Category: Business

When thinking of Interpersonal Relationships can Agile Project Mgt be used?

BurnOut Millennials

On By Pamala CliftIn Business, Education, Interpersonal Relationships, Philosopher comments on RealityLeave a comment

It is impossible. Don’t believe what you’ve been told. The old ways do not work and the new ways are wrong!

From one baby boomer to the millennials, I have so much sympathy for the position you are in. There is no way to make your life feel right as long as you are trying to duplicate your parents vision. A new culture needs to be created. It will be messy, but if you are going to survive, a new game with meaning needs to be created.

College is not working. Starting life with burdening debt because you have been handed the idea that college equals a satisfactory life, is as much a fairytale as The Three Bears. May I suggest maybe shadowing apprenticeships with online tutors. “Doing” will be more functional than the ancient “Answering A, B, or C” question components.

As a divorced female who was married under the “Fred Flintstone mentality of “men rule”, then left with nothing,” l think I have a glimmer of what you’re suffering. The goal to just survive seems elusive. Where can you live that doesn’t cost more than what you make in service jobs? Service jobs are devalued, but service is to humanity and so our humanity is being devalued!

It is very much like the servitude that the miners had working all the time and owing more to the company store than they made. You are imprisoned! There is no time for you, and when there is a hope of seeing light the game shifts and your expertise has evaporated.

Jobs are less and less human oriented and algorithms are replacing jobs. We have lost humanity! We have devalued mothers. (The essential component for the species to survive) in favor of contributing to this “make money” illusion of value. Get rid of that component first! Money is an illusion (proven by all the blockchain currencies out there).

Since my experience (out of order for the time) was a female in computing I have experienced the social media evolution from the beginning. From the first instant communication programs of Kermit to the mess of the competing “Look at me” apps we have today, they are isolating, not socializing and are again just another illusion.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for stories. Stories are what give life purpose. All cultural stories are illusions, we simply need to create our own and not buy into those Illusions handed to us by those who benefit from our conversion.

I remember when another Agile project manager set me aside and walked me through the question, “What is important in your life?” We made a list. Then he had me list what I was doing with my time. (The one and only nonnegotiable component of existence.) Was the life I was living in harmony with what I thought important? Boy was that an eye opener!

I had been catering and assisting with other people’s goals and ideas thinking that somewhere along the line I would get recognized. (No one mentors any more.) It’s all about “Me”, and since that target is always moving, having helpers is necessary. The best you can do is #2. There is no way being the number two dog in an organization will get you to your goal. It will be their goal.

I can see the evolution that has taken place and society’s shift down the rabbit hole. I have been written off in the current society, but that’s ok…I have written off society.

I now live in my own world of value. Got a minimum income and live with a $300 mortgage, but that was both a miracle and a multi-year project to create, allowing me to ignore most of the societal illusions.

Millennials get rid of your burn outs; make your lists, and create that society that allows you to thrive. Don’t let them force you into misery.

Sorry I won’t be around to help but you have my best wishes for an impactful journey!

Hugs, Pam

Less is More

On By Pamala CliftIn Business, Insight Blog, Philosopher comments on Reality, UncategorizedLeave a comment

…more red tape

Marketing has always spoon fed us the notion that MORE=Happy. 

We figure if we have more food, a larger pool, a bigger house, more money, more friends that THAT will mean we are happy!

It takes a long time to reach the glutenous conclusion that “More” does not make one happy.

We have a government that figures MORE laws, MORE forms, MORE requirements will make things run smoother, but it doesn’t. More red tape helps no one. MORE is not the answer…less is! Wouldn’t it be lovely if all the laws were reduced to the Hippocratic Oath? “Do No Harm.” 

I have watched those that have it all, flounder, rot and die of boredom. The only thing that keeps them afloat is changing and starting over, because starting is exciting. We live to try things anew, to start new stories. A bit of danger and the insecurity of NOT knowing everything is safe produces endorphins that lift us out of ourselves and we strive to do the impossible. That is called living, whether we succeed or fail we have a story worth telling.

As you examine demographics of the baby boomers, you can watch the generation go through almost child-psychology-like steps.

  1. Everything is exciting and an adventure. (our childhood)
  2. What you tell me is not necessarily so, I will find my own truth. (hippies-teenagers)
  3. Well, I can do it better than you. (start families and/or careers)
  4. So I am successful if I have things? OK I will get MORE. I want to WIN! (cut throat “I” mentality)
  5. Deterioration of the dream, divorce, job loss, mid-life crisis, age related illness. (Awakening to the illusion 40-50s)
  6. What has been told me is not necessarily so. What actually makes me happy? (60)+
  7. Everything is exciting. To watch a new day dawn, a movement in the morning, the little things like a call or a card become extremely valuable…it is conscious thought that is valued. (70+ and maybe a good movement. lol)

So there you have life. The graph can be laid out on top of every generation as we start, beat ourselves up to play our cultures dictated game, give up and appreciate what we had from the beginning.

I am on the downhill side of this bell curve and watch others doing what I have done. Downsize which means, less to move, less to insure, less to lock up, less to look for things you have misplaced, less paperwork.

Your assignment is to look past your culture’s dictated game of life and create what makes you happy, taking the consequences and the lack of safety as part of your adventure. 

The only way that you will find your happiness is by first appreciating every little component around you. If where you focus IS reality, which is my premise throughout this blog, you will be far happier if you can focus on what a generation of experience starts and comes back to…its the little things that are of value.

Enjoy the journey by creating it yourself.

Hugs, Pam

Project Manage YOUR Life

On By Pamala CliftIn Business, Insight Blog, Philosopher comments on Reality, UncategorizedLeave a comment

…and the graph says?

I meet a lot of Agile and Project Management professionals, but rarely do they think to take their business management expertise and apply it to their own life.

People seem to just be flotsom (material or refuse floating on water). Wherever the wave or current takes them they deal with it as if they have no control.

No one thinks. The day is filled with noise and demands from outside. They keep “background noise” going on all the time so they don’t have to examine their own thoughts? Why is that? One of my favorite sayings is: It takes a pretty good person to be alone and find themselves in good company!

What a tragedy to come to the end of ones life having never known who you are? …or spent time on the the things that mattered most to you.

So lets take steps to fix that. In Agile/Scrum the Product Owner makes user stories for the team to solve a situation with a program. Like, “We need to create a table with all the customer’s past orders; so the customer can reference them for future purchases.”

So lets make YOU the customer. First what is it you want? Most people don’t know what they want because they have never THOUGHT about it. They just dream of it being all handed to them in the lottery or something.

So the first step is communication with the customer…You! Set aside time alone with no distractions and talk with yourself. It could be out loud or in your head. You could write yourself a letter or video tape your thoughts for later play back.

Remember to take in SCOPE, RESOURCES and a TIME frame. You need the user story to have a conceivable conclusion date. Example: “Walk 30 min. a day on Johnson pathway, until I can get into my black jeans.” That user story terminates when you successfully get into your black jeans. 

Now if you’re a size 24 and your jeans are 8, that is a timeframe and scope doomed to fail. Make your user stories no more than 3 month personal sprints. In business it is two weeks, which would be more toward the ideal. We all need to have successes. It leads to more confidence and comfort when taking the next sprint.

“I want world peace.” is not a desire that is within your power, nor something that you will eventually be able to check off. So that is not a good user story.

Start with three things that you want. 

Say you want a new job. Well if you make that your user story, you’re doomed. These need to be action steps that can be checked off and fully within your power, so the user story would be more appropriately stated this way. “I will rewrite my resume and submit it to three positions I desire before the end of the month, so that I can feel satisfied I am working toward a better life.”

No one can guarantee success outside of your efforts, but your efforts should be stated in a way you will be able to feel success.

Life is a journey and persistence says you have never failed till you quit. If nothing changes and you don’t get a new job. You can create a new user story that says, “I am going to join the Rotary Club and make 3 new contacts so I can start networking toward a better job.”

There is no failure. There are just steps toward success, some are backwards, around mountains, underwater, and delayed but the maze of reality is an adventure to be enjoyed.

Find out who you are and then make this exercise of breathing-in-&-out one that delights you every morning.

What a wonderful journey. Hugs, Pam

…But a Name Makes it Real?

On By Pamala CliftIn Business, Philosopher comments on RealityLeave a comment

My name is…

The “What is Real?” question about virtual existence has brought about tons of questionable aspects of our real life.

Names: What are names? Well if you pay the right people and fill out the right documents…”Poof” you now have a REAL company because it has a unique NAME! Did it exist before? Well, yeah you were working on it for awhile before you decided you wanted to be official. So giving it a NAME makes it real.

Back in the farming days people raised animals. I remember being told NOT to name the animals that were destined to be on the table, because you can not eat a pet. Naming an animal made it a real entity not just a future dinner.

Naming is a very powerful intimate association. It sets the level of engagement between two people. If someone you don’t know comes up to you and says “Mr. Smith great to have you with us today”, you respond in a formal mode. That addressed-name gave you your interaction path.

However, if someone you don’t know comes up to you and calls you by your first name and slaps you on the back, you instantly start racking your brain for any past association with this individual that would bring it into the familiar. You have again been given an interaction path. 

So when you create something, a drawing, painting, poem, song, product, a lot rests on that name, because it will announce how the expected interaction path should go.

Online we take new names. These new names are meant also to direct our interactions. They tell in advance if you want to be considered in a certain strata of society. PunkRocker, DumbBlonde, VetReturned, SmackMyAss, ProfessorKnowItAll, QueenofAll, PriestofEverything…so many ways of naming our envisionment of ourselves.

Just like in real life those lovely titles that people add to their names is suppose to give a certain framework in another’s perceptions.

These are only aspects of us; not us in entirety. We are called by many different names and respond differently to each. If someone addresses you as Pastor Bob, there is a list of characteristics and mannerisms that you pull from a file in your head that says this is how I interact.

However, when you get home and your wife says, “Come here lover.” you pull from a whole different folder. Does that mean only the one with the official name is real? 

They ALL are Real because they are names you accept as a folder composite of your characteristics. 

So is the name you use online real? If you accept it as real. If others know what perceived interactions are associated with that name, it is just as much a real folder composite of you as any of your other names.

My question to you is? At what point in time and what selection of folders will you bring into the entity that you are designing as the final YOU.

Discard the names that you do not identify with. If your childhood name was pee-pants, that is no longer you. Do the examination of all your folder names as you work toward the guru’s advice of being one and whole.

Whatever final composite of you that you create, examine it. Don’t let others choose your names unless that is an interaction you wish to embrace. You do have the final control over that package. Enjoy the exploration.

Hugs, Pam (The Roadside Philosopher)

Selling the Dream is Reality!

On By Pamala CliftIn Business, SocietyLeave a comment

Well if it Makes Money…

I am often criticized for not living in reality. Yet I cannot seem to observe anything in reality that does not base itself in fiction?

I am currently in the market for two things. One is for a new love in my life, but that will have to wait till I land …Two: a position to fund my passion.

I watch and I observe the way jobs are presented. One of the big red flags is if they present the Frame before the picture. What I mean about that is if they talk about your income first before they talk about what you will do for that income. They have a check list of buy-ins that get you closer and closer, but know if they told you up front what you would have to do to get that money, you would walk away. So they sell you the dream.

The first time I consciously remember that construct I was young and answered a dream of acting in a movie. If your talented, good looking and can act you can make… XXX dollars an hour. Yep you got it. It was XXX rated movies. I kept buying into their dream and step by step they added little hiccups I could rationalize around. Fortunately for me I had a boyfriend with me that wasn’t going to have any of it and I was dismissed from the presentation.

You would think that sort of thing would only work on the young and gullible but I almost bought into the same construct just yesterday. The company started with the dream. Work at home and make $45 to 70 thousand dollars a year. We are a company that gives back to society, examples: Toys for tots, local charities…etc etc. We are fast paced growing company and you can move up. We all start in the company at the same place. We do excellent software and you can help people.

They are marketed as a place that gets you a job within 30 days. You would be a career specialist helping people find their correct match for work. Wow, that sounds awesome, getting paid for helping people. 

Is that where they make their money? NO! They make their money giving referrals to educational institutions that need leads. Which educational institutions need the leads? Which ones will pay most for those leads? Yep, the ones that are not valid. If it is a good school with a good track record people are beating down the door for the certifications and degrees.

I sort of got it when I asked directly…”Do you take data on the schools so you know which ones are going to work out for the people?” I was thinking this is still awesome, helping people find the steps to get to the place they would like.

His answer, “NO!”. Then he said something totally ridiculous. “It’s illegal.”

What? It is illegal to gather data on an institution you are referring your clients to? He also quoted ancient statistics about how much more money a person with a degree will make over high school. So it has taken me a few hours to put the pieces together. I still so much wanted to believe the dream. 

They make their money drawing on people in need of employment, with a sympathizing voice and pretend caring so they can get the referral money from the educational institution that needs to fill it’s seats to validate their construct. And who will pay the most for that? The educational institutions that don’t work! So you make money by selling the dream of progress over REAL progress…sigh. 

I really had such high hopes for the stated goal. It could actually be an awesome societal changing platform. They could validate the education with jobs. If there was not an institution that was adequate they could charge and create their own construct and charge with accuracy what is known to be needed in the market place.

Will I tell you the name of this fast growing company?…sure if you email me. They have far more money selling the dream than reality and I can’t afford a lawsuit.

So I will continue looking, but do not tell me…stick to reality. Reality does not sell, only the FRONT of reality sells. The real reality is the dream.

Enjoy the journey. Hugs, Pam (The Roadside Philosopher)