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Michael Vizdos Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

November 27, 2006 by Liz Leave a Comment

Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Mike there?

If you go on Amazon, you’ll find that Mike Vizdos wrote a book with Scott Ambler and John Nalbone. The Amazon bio also will tell you that he’s a certified Scrum Master.

Mike told me that Scrum is a way of teaching development teams to manage chaos when every team member has conflicting needs. What does Scrum stand for? Scrum stands for Scrum — the letters have no meaning. I heard it from the master.

Mike and I had fun discussing the kinds of issues he faces teaching folks in all kinds of business to work together in teams. He said that often teams sabotage each other. We discussed the problem of middle managers, who learned to lead by giving orders rather than asking folks to solve problems together.

Mike says he has a better chance at making headway with the idea of teamwork because he’s from outside the culture. I said that I could see that. My thought was that ideas give people power — he’d be leaving and that would take away the threat. We talked about how the company culture often undoes what he worked to get started.

The heart of this part of the conversation was that as much as they talk about teamwork, organizations often reward heroes. So there’s no payoff to working with and for each other when one role has a paycheck or gets credit. Mike teaches the value of giving up that world view. He tells folks if they love working 100-hour weeks, they shouldn’t expect their teammates to do the same thing. I could almost hear him saying that life is about living.

Our discussion wandered into family, kids, neighborhoods, travel, and homeschooling. Mike has the advantage of being able to take his two sons and his wife with him when he works in other countries. We talked about the educational units they prepare for their kids so that they’re always learning.

I have a feeling Mike’s the same way. . . . always learning and always curious. When we talked about the things his teams do to form relationships, he told me in detail about the IT department that formed a knitting group. Now they all have long scarves they don’t know how to finish off.

Maybe Mike and I can get some folks to start a HELP DESK for IT Knitters.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

It’s amazing to see when people start going home to their families and things just happen. —Mike Vizdos

Stop by Mike’s Blog, Implementing Scrum, and say hi!

Thanks, Mike, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

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Filed Under: SOB Business, Successful Blog Tagged With: B.A.D. Blogger, bc, Blogger-a-day-call, Implementing-SCRUM, Mike-Vizdos

Comments

  1. Tony D. Clark says

    November 27, 2006 at 7:01 PM

    Wow, Mike – what an awesome site! I HAVE to get the name of your cartoonist. What a talented fellow 🙂

    Mike’s a really cool guy. Like I said before Liz, you’re a magnet for talented and cool folks. This is a great series.

    Reply
  2. ME Strauss says

    November 27, 2006 at 7:21 PM

    Hey, Tony!
    I hear the cartoon guy is such a great guy!
    I think we should get to know him. Can you get me an introduction? I hear his name is Tony D. Clark and his blog is Success from the Nest (http://successfromthenest.com/) I think he’s wonderful!

    Reply
  3. Tony D. Clark says

    November 27, 2006 at 7:54 PM

    Aww, shucks, Liz. I love working with Mike. He has some really great ways to present what normally is a pretty dry subject. I’m glad to be part of it.

    Reply
  4. katiebird says

    November 27, 2006 at 9:56 PM

    Oh, This Scrum is just what I need. My boss was talking to me about it, but she couldn’t remember what the letters stand for 😉 — she just knew it sounded like a good thing.

    From what you say, it sounds better than that. I’m off to your site, I’ll be back in a bit!

    Reply
  5. ME Strauss says

    November 27, 2006 at 9:59 PM

    Yea! Katie,
    Now you can tell your boss that the letters don’t stand for anything. 🙂

    Reply
  6. Mike Vizdos says

    November 28, 2006 at 9:09 PM

    Thanks for the responses so far. All are flattering. As usual, I do humbly ask readers here to let me know their thoughts on a site that is geared towards a highly niched market of geeks (me being on of them).

    If anything, the cartoons by Tony are funny. He is awesome and I am lucky to be able to work with him.

    Reply
  7. ME Strauss says

    November 28, 2006 at 9:38 PM

    Hey, Mike. I think you’re hit!
    Come on over to the front page and join open comments if you’re still around. 🙂

    Reply
  8. Mike Vizdos says

    November 29, 2006 at 8:17 AM

    Sorry I missed the open call on Tuesday night. Just as I was trying to join I had to go play daddy :). Priorities.

    Reply
  9. ME Strauss says

    November 29, 2006 at 8:25 AM

    Mike,
    I’d like you to meet, Cat Morley. She’s a world class designer. One of her many blogs is http://www.designerswhoblog.com
    Cat did the fabulous header at the top of Successful-Blog.

    Cat,
    Mike is the SCRUM Master, B.A.D. Blogger that I wrote about earlier this week. He understands the workings of teams with conflicting interests.

    Reply
  10. Mike Vizdos says

    November 29, 2006 at 8:39 PM

    Hey Cat.

    Nice to meet you virtually. I tried the link to your site above and it was broken :-(. Sorry for the late reply today… life :).

    – mike

    Reply
  11. Mike Vizdos says

    December 4, 2006 at 10:01 PM

    Eek…. Where’d everyone go? 🙂

    Reply
  12. ME Strauss says

    December 4, 2006 at 10:31 PM

    Hi Mike,
    I’m still here!

    Reply

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