Sprint your way to success
Do you tend to make a list of resolutions every year and never reach? Do you make glorious plans and never follow through? Not a project is initiated with courage, with all the best intentions and then leave in the first bump in the road?
Everyone laughed at me when I developed a diagram flow and critical path to plan my wedding – but it worked. That was more than 20 years before the age of the wedding planner. Now, these things are big business.
However, I often wonder why more companies planning tools have not done in the "real" world.
I know more traditional business methods are cumbersome planning and labor intensive and not conducive to use in the real world. But there are some new trends Agile manufacturing and technology that make it easier to stay focused and achieve short and long term.
Goal Setting AGILE PROCESSES IN BUSINESS
Ken Schwaber and Sutherland, Jeff, the pioneers of agile methods in the software industry have found that the quickest and most effective achieving objectives, even major goals is to break everything down into small pieces called sprints 2-4 weeks.
According to PC Magazine: "Each Sprint starts with planning two to three hours session, which includes a client, a facilitator and project team. The customer describes the highest priority issues he or she has a backlog, or the list of items he or she wants to complete. The team then decides how many requests they can perform on a period of 2-4 weeks. Once everyone agrees on how much work to do, the task list freezes and the computer is left alone to complete – No additions, unchanged until the sprint is done. In order to stay focused and keep on schedule, a meeting of 15 minutes each day on the achievements, obstacles and tasks are readily discussed. At the end of Sprint, the results are submitted and reviewed, and the next Sprint has started. "
SPORTS sprints
Sprints are not just in the business world. In fact, the idea was originally taken from the world of sports – Rugby, to be specific.
Agile's Journal: "A career in rugby is a distance from an athlete who travel from one end to another. Before an athlete or team sprint, the team quickly meet and plan how to do it. During the sprint, an athlete would encounter opposition from the other team and could go ahead with the plan [if the plan is still good] or, more likely to alter the plan. You can anticipate, but do not predict the opposition. A sprint checks whether the computer is a computer, whether they are good or not and their ability to respond to change. "
Brokers are also familiar with the idea of sprints and what they can do for a training program. While training for a marathon and a half I learned that a great way to build the strength needed to run long distances to spend at least one day a week running short bursts as fast as I could mixed with short distances at a slower pace. By doing sprints as part of my training, was able to build strength in a much shorter period of time.
GETTING STARTED
How do you start with Agile Personal Development?
If you simply write a long "to do" list of daily tasks to be lost in the weeds without a clear vision of where it goes. On the other hand, if you create only a few long-term goals and push them all at once, either who are frustrated with the lack of visible progress or overwhelmed by the magnitude of the effort.
Achieving your dreams requires long-term vision and focus short term. It also requires that you be ready to adapt to changing priorities and frequent interruptions while still advancing, step by step.
Before launching into a personal career, you need to take the time to complete these six steps:
1. your list of long-term goals
Define and delineate the goals you would like carried out during the next year. Be as specific as possible with each goal.
2. Prioritize
Decide on the most important objective for you. Choose one that is focused in a month. If you want to succeed, your focus should always be on completing the most important objective and the most important task first.
Remember, keep the limited range for best results. If you have more than one goal, scoring the rest down in the future "hold" list and put it away for later. Do not think of them. If you do, you will only waste time and prevent him from achieving any of you goals. Research on Agile methodologies has shown that it is faster and easier to focus on one objective at a time and complete goals in series, instead of jumping back and forth between objectives. Agile Project Management with Scrum
3. Visualize
Then create a story or vision of what will be in five years if you reach your goal, after a year, after a month. How do you feel? That is real. Include as many senses as possible in your description.
4. Time to target your mailbox
Ask yourself: "What I can reasonably achieve this goal in a month?" Be reasonable. In fact, what you think you can do, is cut in half the first round. In this way, you will be pleased with yourself if you exceed your goal and not give up or, worse yet, quit smoking if you find a couple of bumps in the road. You never have all the time you think you.
Once you have described what the month will decide how can spend time each week and each day's work to achieve its goal of a month. Then come back and see what he said he wanted to do in a month. Is it reasonable and realistic, or you need to fit? Remember, no matter how good it will always be some distractions. So, you might as well plan for them.
5. Create your list Sprint
Breaking down your weekly goals monthly goal. Be very clear. Want to be able to control their achievements and to adjust quickly if you start getting off track.
Once you have set weekly goals 4-5, look what you have to do every day to achieve the objective. As this is a task list (not a list no-not), be sure to focus on the decade to do, not do. Trust me, it's much easier to do something than to do something. I know from experience every time I try to not do something, that's all I can think of and, ultimately, everything I do.
Be as clear as possible. Instead of saying "eat healthy" or "stick to my diet," says "eat fruits or vegetables 7" or "eat two portions, only, of lean meat." Their daily tasks must be accurate and measurable. You need to be able to monitor and control them off, much like cooking a recipe.
After you have created your daily tasks, go back and check again. Ask yourself: "Do these things really reach my goal?" And "Is there anything else I can get me there faster or easier? "If you are on track, you should change your goal or change their day-do list – Something's Gotta Give.
6. Enter advanced
Trust me, unless you really make this as easy as following a recipe, you'll have trouble reaching your goal. List each task for each day – either last night or early morning. If you can, create the list on your computer, so you can make each day and review it and edit it each week.
According body builder world-renowned fitness expert, Tom Venuto, "In this day and age, your schedule is always filled with something else if you do not block chunks of time for more important priorities in your life – one of which is health. Not enough to have their training "on its head. There is a huge difference between saying "I'm training tomorrow, and writing," I'm training chest, shoulders, triceps and abs tomorrow at 7:00 pm sharp. "… This is discipline very simple but very powerful. "
By logging what is right for you, you're going to make you responsible and accountable. Not being clear on what we are about is a frequent excuse for failure. You can also easily follow the steps toward your goal and see where and when you are getting on track. Thus, to make quick adjustments in full before you lose your way.
These are examples of monthly portfolio and burn every day. Note that tasks become more and more specific.
Sample Monthly Performance Objectives (sprint backlog)
Finish with a priority
1 Be able to running 10 miles in late September
Weekly Goal (burning Sprint)
Because priority
1 Run 5 miles Monday
2 Day off Tuesday
3 Sprint 1m/3m Wednesday 5X
4 Cross train / Weight – 45 minutes Thursday
5 Friday Run 45 minutes hills
Saturday 6 Easy Run
7 Cross train / Weight – 45 minutes Sunday
STEP BY STEP / SRINT Sprint
Now that you know what you do, it's time to do so. Go with the knowledge that you have bitten into a manageable piece and you have the means to achieve the goal
– After all, is only for a month.
About the Author
Janet Sorrentino, founder of www.Success-Sprints.com, has been a consultant for over seven years, guiding entrepreneurs and professionals to set goals and find the optimal path to achievement, both in their businesses and personally. Her focus is working with professional clients who are looking for a change in their careers and their lives. Janet works with them to develop personal strategies for success, achieve life goals, identify career change opportunities and launch new businesses. In addition to her training in counseling and personal goal setting, Janet is experienced in developing business plans, formulating strategies to implement them and optimizing the process so that goals are achieved quickly.
Prior to becoming a consultant, Janet served on the executive teams of several companies, to include an award winning Internet retailer, three high tech startups and two companies owned by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. Janet has helped large organizations manage product launches and multi-million dollar projects, in the U.S. and internationally. She has also served on the board of Directors for a college, a women’s business organization and an international school of Healing and personal growth.
Janet has an MBA and a Master of Science degree and has completed several years of post-graduate education in counseling, self-hypnosis and social studies in aging.
Award Ceremony – MORE | FITNESS Women’s Half-Marathon 2010
|
|
Runner’s World Run Less, Run Faster: Become a Faster, Stronger Runner with the Revolutionary FIRST Training Program $10.00 Finally, runners at all levels can improve their race times while training less, with the revolutionary Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training (FIRST) program.Hailed by the Wall Street Journal and featured twice in six months in cover stories in Runner’s World magazine, FIRST’s unique training philosophy makes running easier and more accessible, limits overtraining and burnout, and su… |
